


We Built Our Frigates (and lost ourselves at sea)

by LadyCharity



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Bookstore AU, Coffeeshop AU, F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, everyone's trying to be themselves in the midst of their crazy lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-10 20:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCharity/pseuds/LadyCharity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started off as a bookstore, which branched off into a teahouse, which became a refuge where seven in particular found themselves peaceful and crushed, in love and in pain, healing and breaking, lost and found. </p><p>AU, in which our seven favorites harbor secrets, pasts, and dreams and happen to find each other and themselves in Steve's local New York City bookshop.</p><p>(Discontinued)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ulysses

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for checking this story out! Unlike most of my multi-chaptered things, I have absolutely no more written out, so this will be running as I go. The title is influenced by Emily Dickinson.

The bookstore was originally named ‘Time with Tennyson’ before Natasha came along. Steve had opened the quaint bookstore after he was given the Medal of Honor upon his honorable discharge from the army. He never realized until he set aside his uniform and combat helmet that the sound of small bells as the door opened would be something he wouldn’t mind listening to for the rest of his life, after several years of gunshots and screams since he was eighteen.

Bruce raised an eyebrow at Steve when Steve told him of his ambitions. It was a big place full of people, New York City, but Barnes & Noble was bigger. And the shop Steve rented with his savings wasn’t entirely a cavern to hold all sorts of tomes; it was once a local craft shop that sold the most beautiful wooden puzzle boxes until the owner relocated; the smoky aroma of wood shavings still hung alongside the perfume of fresh-faced books.

“You’ll have a hard time drawing in the commercialized corporate America through your door,” Bruce had said when Steve carried cardboard box after cardboard box of hardcover books to the shelves.

Steve had cast a glance out the window, where Stark Tower in its gaudy glory could be seen, and he chuckled because Bruce was damn right but Steve was damned if he didn’t try.

And if anything, New York City was fifty percent commercialized corporate America, fifty percent hipster artists drawn to the eclectic. So Steve hung golden lights from the ceiling, as well as handmade mobiles of colorful glass, crystal wind chimes, rainbow dream-catchers, and plastic teacups along the rafters. The shelves touched the ceiling, laden with titles that begged for wheeled ladders to reach, and pillowed armchairs at every corner for the smitten. There was an entire flat above that was yet to be filled; originally it must have been the craftsman’s apartment, but Steve already had a room (conveniently near Peggy’s apartment, may he add) two blocks away, and let his emptied boxes inhabit it.

Until one day—a typical, sweetly modest business day—the bell at the door chimed and in walked a woman with sharp eyes that screamed commercialized corporate America but with bright red hair that whispered hipster artist.

Steve was ringing up a customer for a copy of _Everything is Illuminated_ when she walked in. She sat herself on one of the red armchairs while she waited, bright eyes meticulously sizing up the memorabilia dangling on silver chains overhead and the top shelf occupied by Agatha Christie. Steve couldn’t help but let his eyes wander toward her as he counted the change, wondering if her generally black attire should warrant any wariness from him.

“Can I help you?” said Steve, rubbing the back of his neck.

She flashed him a sharp smile.

“Are you new here?” she said.

Steve frowned.

“Er, me? I mean, I grew up here,” said Steve. “Well, I was gone for a bit for a couple tours in the Middle East, but I’ve been back for a little bit of a year or more, and—”

“I meant your store,” said the redhead.

“Ah. Right,” said Steve. “Mm, somewhat new. A couple months of business. I’m doing well. Are you looking for something?”

“I was wondering why you had teacups on your ceiling,” she said. “I was expecting something literature-related. Or for it to have a little coffeehouse with it.”

Steve chuckled. “I’m not so big for that. In fact, I’m a little dehydrated myself.” When she gave him a laugh, Steve cleared his throat and looked away. “I mean, I’m not actually dehydrated. No, the teacups are there because—well, why not?”

She stared at him a little before smiling genuinely.

“I’m Natasha,” she said.

“Steve Rogers,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Ah—are you interested in any books? I mean, I’ve got some still waiting around to be unpacked upstairs—I should really get to work on them.”

“Is upstairs your storage place?” said Natasha.

“Not really,” said Steve. “I’ve got a backroom for that, but I don’t really have any idea what to do with the upper flat. I mean, I’d fill the place with more books but…I don’t have any bookshelves left.” He laughed. “I’m very new to this business thing.”

“I’ll say,” said Natasha. “You’ve already paid for the space, why not use it?”

“I know,” said Steve. “Awful waste if I don’t. I’m just still trying to get used to this. Are you looking into it?”

Natasha shrugged.

“To be honest,” she said. “I had looked into buying this place before you came along.”

“Oh,” said Steve. “Er, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Survival of the fittest,” said Natasha. “I mean, you’re doing well, and you seem like a nice guy, so I couldn’t bring myself to sabotage.” When Steve stared perplexedly at her, she cracked a wry smile. “I’m kidding, sort of. Best of luck to you and your tomes.”

“Thanks,” said Steve uncertainly. “Do you mind if I ask you what you were planning to open?”

“A teahouse,” said Natasha. “I want something to slow me down.”

“Just off the a fast-paced career path?” said Steve.

Natasha laughed. “You can kind of say that. Doesn’t matter. Starbucks would have eaten me alive if I played honest.”

“That’s too bad,” said Steve. “Tea and books always went well.”

“Well, with you planted here, neither can live while the other survives.”

They both laughed. Steve rubbed his chin, eyes brightening at a dawning thought.

“You know,” said Steve, “I really am not going to use the upper room as far as I know. And the upper floor is really spacious. Enough room for a good number of chairs and tables, and a small kitchen.”

“What?” said Natasha, cocking her eyebrow.

“I mean, it would be a nice idea, wouldn’t it?” said Steve. “A place to read books and drink tea, just a floor away?”

“Like every other bookstore chain in America?” said Natasha.

“I really am not going to use that floor as far as I know,” said Steve. “And it would be a waste. And you’ll be so hard-pressed to find space in New York City for your teahouse; I’d hate to see you not be able to do it.”

Natasha snorted.

“You’re offering a complete stranger some sort of partnership with your little store and giving up your perfectly usable space to someone who’s casually threatened sabotage by teabags,” she said.

“What’s wrong with that?” said Steve.

Natasha gave him a long look before laughing.

“I really mean it,” said Steve. “Think it over. I’d be perfectly willing.”

“You have something up your sleeve, don’t you?” said Natasha. “You can’t be this naïve.”

Steve was already scrawling his phone number on a sticky note to hand to Natasha. She looked at him as if he announced his plans of franchising his store on Mars.

“Just sleep on it for a night or a week,” said Steve. “I think it’d be great.”

Natasha sized him up with her bright eyes before her lips quirked into a smile. She took the sticky note between two fingers and pocketed it.

“You’re crazy,” said Natasha. And Steve laughed her off and cleared the boxes from the upper flat that evening.

Two and a half months later, the sign outside the door changed to ‘Tea and Tennyson,’ and the upper flat was radiating with the orange glow of wall lamps and the aroma of espresso and Earl Grey. Five months later, bookshelves lined Natasha’s walls as well with Steve’s books, cradling the shiny black coffee tables and chairs each topped with a classic play from Tennessee Williams and Anton Chekov among many. Patrons of Natasha’s Tea would thumb through and fall in love with Hemingway; bibliophiles of Steve’s Tennyson found themselves not just parched for words but for a cuppa. Bruce, half for loyalty for his friend Steve and half for interest in literature and lattes, was a regular customer of both.

Nonetheless, business remained charming but humble, some days quieter than Steve preferred, some days slower than Natasha was used to. If there was fear for foreclosure or belly-up, they never discussed it with each other. Natasha kept all talks of money, if not all talks of anything, to herself, while Steve found himself stuttering at the slightest mention of the subject of even morning habits, much less business.

That was, until the doorbell chimed and in walked a far too unfamiliar and even more recognizable face walked in.

Steve was feeding Fitzgerald to the bookshelves when he met the far too famous Tony Stark in his very own bookstore. At first Steve passed him off as being a ridiculously accurate lookalike because there was absolutely _no_ way that genius billionaire playboy philanthropist Tony Stark would bother to _read_ when he probably invented robots to do it for him.

“Hey, you,” said Tony.

Steve opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.

“Can I—help you?” said Steve.

“Yeah, you can. That’s your job, isn’t it?” said Tony. He slipped off his shades. Several readers already in the shop stared with gaping mouths at the celebrity. “Sign said Tea and Tennyson.”

“What?” said Steve, still staring.

“You know, outside the shop,” said Tony.

“Oh—yes, right, that’s us—me—here,” said Steve.

“I saw the tea thing on the sign, but unless there’s some chamomile brewing above our heads in those tea party cups I’m calling foul,” said Tony. “I’m parched and I’m not going to let Starbucks siphon me of my fortune.”

“Natasha’s upstairs. I mean—her teahouse is upstairs,” said Steve. “We’re sort of collaborating, see?”

“Oh, you guys are one of those businesses,” said Tony. Steve could see pedestrians gawking from outside his wide windows at Tony’s back. “Does that mean I will feel obligated to buy something from you if I sip on something?”

“I mean—of course not,” said Steve. “We’re not going to force you to do anything just because we share the same building.”

“Oh, whatever,” said Tony, running a finger over the novels. “If a corporation’s gonna live here in Manhattan, it’ll be Stark Industries, not Barnes & Noble.”

He pulled out two novels— _The Art of War_ and _All the King’s Men_ —and held it in front of Steve.

“Make me a recommendation,” he said. “What will I enjoy the best with a big mug of black coffee? And if you lose, I will personally set my rogue dummies after you.”

“Um—ah—” Steve ran his palms over his pants. “Do you want me to be very honest?”

“Be stark,” said Tony with a wink.

Steve wasn’t sure whether to laugh alongside Tony or to shake his head.

“Well, I can see you relating to _The Art of War_ judging by your company’s path,” said Steve. “Er, more like your company’s previous path before your complete overturn, so maybe not as much anymore…”

“And this one?” said Tony, waving _All the King’s Men._

“If it helps,” said Steve, “the main character’s name is also Stark.”

“Good man,” said Tony, handing back _The Art of War._ “Loosen up. You act like a nervous ol’ grandpa. I’m not going to hold you up or anything. What’s your name?”

“Steve Rogers,” said Steve.

“Tony Stark. You know me already but we can have a proper introduction like two actual people and not a mortal and a god,” said Tony.

“You aren’t a god,” said Steve.

Tony blinked before smirking.

“Figure of speech is a delicate art, Captain Goody,” he said. He tossed the book from one hand to the other. “But I _am_ Tony Stark, and I _am_ introducing myself to you so that settles everything nice and without conflict, right?”

“Right,” said Steve, furrowing his eyebrows.

Tony patted Steve on the shoulder. “Easy, Cap. Give yourself a chamomile too, you need it.”

“Hey, Steve?”

Natasha descended from the stairs, holding a jug of coffee in one hand and a handful of napkins in the other. Steve and Tony both turned to face her, and it was not even a secret to Steve how Tony’s eyes lit up at the sight of Natasha’s dark red hair, her dangerous eyes, and—dare he notice?—her fit form.

“I need a bit of your help,” she said.

“Sure, anything,” said Steve.

“What do you need?” said Tony. “Help with the electronics? Technology? No problem—I can get that covered for you, Miss—?”

“I think you left your bathroom faucet running, it’s lowering the water pressure upstairs,” she said, eyeing Tony with narrowed eyes.

“Oh—I’m sorry,” said Steve, hurrying to his backroom restroom to fix his faucet. Natasha nodded in thanks to Steve and flashed Steve a perfectly sweet smile before returning to her café. Tony beamed cheekily up the stairs.

“So you say the drinks or upstairs?” said Tony.

“Non-alcoholic, Mr. Stark,” Steve said.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tony. He opened to the first page of Robert Penn Warren’s treasure. “Thanks for the recommendation, Cap. Prepare me one every week. Pepper always said I needed—what was it?—mental stimulation to distract myself from quantum physics and otherwise driving her up the wall. Oh, and one more thing—”

Steve looked up at Tony as the billionaire was ascending the stairs.

“Don’t go all crazy on your social media declaring that Tony Stark frequented your Cup and Chaucer or whatever the name of this place is so that people can flood this place like a rave concert,” said Tony. “I like my crowd, but I need my space, and I don’t want you dying of a heart attack from this.”

“Never dreamed of it,” said Steve. “I didn’t think you were so special enough for overreaction anyway.”

Tony raised his eyebrows, but Steve could see Tony’s lips quirk into a wry grin.

“Good man, Cap,” he said as he disappeared upstairs. “Every man needs a hermit hole.”

-

After Tony’s seventh visit, Steve had a box in the backroom dedicated to recommended books for him. Tony bought and read every one.

-

“Well, this is unexpected.”

Natasha looked up from her tea kettle and her heart nearly skipped a beat. Like Pavlov’s bell, the lines from Casablanca echoed in her head.

_Of all the teashops in the world, in all the towns, in all the world…_

“Clint,” she said.

She would say that Clint looked no different than when she last saw him a year ago, but that would have been a lie. His buzz cut grew in, his scar along his chin had faded, and his smile less forced. And his hands significantly empty of firearms.

“I always wondered how you were able to brew a wicked up of tea,” said Clint.

“You look well,” said Natasha. Clint raised his eyebrows. “You really do. Less bloody. That’s always good.”

“Well, don’t check my bum,” said Clint.

Natasha groaned.

“Don’t tell me you—”

“Got me out of service for like a month,” said Clint. “Either sons of bitches are getting worse at their shot or they’re getting cheekier. Butt cheekier.”

“Glad to see you’re still kicking,” said Natasha.

“Glad to see that you’re happy,” said Clint.

Natasha gazed at Clint before clearing her throat and pouring hot water into a mug. Clint watched her carefully, almost forlornly, like she was a coming-of-age movie and he was watching her grow sad and wise.

“So how’s business?” said Clint.

“Nice,” said Natasha, busying herself with the tea. Her red hair shielded her face. “More and more people are enjoying us. Steve and me, I mean.”

“Not gonna lie,” said Clint, “I never pictured you doing something so quiet as opening a teahouse.”

“Yeah?” said Natasha. She dipped the rose petal teabag in the hot water until red and amber plumes made the water blush. It made her think of waterboarding. “Neither did I.”

“What got you into it?” said Clint.

“It’s not even a story,” said Natasha. “I wanted something simpler. People like tea, people drink tea, so I give it to them. It’s not a story.”

“It’s doing good for you?” said Clint. “I hope?”

Natasha licked her lips before placing the mug on a saucer and turning away from Clint.

“Bruce?” she said. “Bruce, your tea’s ready.”

Bruce stood from his table burdened with books to retrieve his teacup. Clint resignedly stepped to the side as more customers came to place their order of drinks and Natasha dutifully brewed their macchiato. When she returned her attention to him, she wouldn’t look directly at him; it was like she was a tree and he had peeled off a layer of barbed bark around her core.

“Things haven’t been the same since you left,” said Clint.

“Things haven’t been the same for me either,” said Natasha. “Can’t say I’m mourning over that.”

Clint rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Got it. I know this is good for you. And I’m glad.”

“Are you?” said Natasha.

“I just hope that this doesn’t mean you won’t look at me every time and just think I’m a part of the past. Your past.”

Natasha closed her eyes.

“You aren’t just a part of my past, Clint,” she said. She looked at him and wondered if he could still see the truth or the lie in her eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t remember.”

Clint slipped his hands into his pockets—what he always did so that his shoulders curled in and he was emotionally—and physically—retreating.

“Clint, it isn’t your fault,” said Natasha. “I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

“No, I get it, I really do,” Clint said. “I used to drive you to your therapist. I just wish—”

He paused before sighing and shaking his head.

“Never mind,” he said. “I shouldn’t bring it up. I mean, you’re finally doing what you want, right? Are you?”

Natasha gave him a half-smile.

“Yeah,” she said. “I am.”

“Good,” said Clint. “Good. And that’s all that really matters. Hey, hit me up with your best shot, how about? I don’t know what you got, never been to a tea party or anything.”

“You sure about that?” Natasha said with a smirk. “I think you lack a good deal of finesse to appreciate this.”

“I’ll show you finesse,” said Clint, mimicking licking his hand and smoothing down his hair, straightening his shoulders like a Buckingham Palace guard. Natasha snorted and shook her head.

“You don’t even know the difference between oolong and rooibos,” said Natasha.

“Sure I do,” said Clint. “One’s long and the other’s made of rhubarb.”

Natasha laughed and poured him a cup of chai.

“We’re keeping it easy for beginners,” said Natasha.

“Make it a latte,” said Clint.

“Weak,” said Natasha.

“Preventing osteoporosis,” Clint said.

When she finished his cup of hot chai latte, Clint sobered. He took the cup with both hands; she could see the calluses along his fingertips and the palms of his hands form mountain ranges and deserts on his skin.

“Hey,” he said. “The other agents send their regards. They all hope you’re doing well.”

Natasha wished they didn’t, because that meant they thought she did nothing wrong and that meant she would feel like she was lying to them all along. But she smiled at Clint because he stood so hopefully and naively and she missed the guiltlessness that once came with him but more importantly she missed _him_.

“Thanks, Clint,” said Natasha. “Tell them I said hi.” Before he could turn away, she called out. “You’ll be around for a while, won’t you?”

Clint slapped his assumedly tender rear. “Got myself a million dollar wound—I’ll be around.”

-

Now, Tony wasn’t one to keep routine. Life was too short for routine, for a pattern to form itself, for the mundane. If he could have things his way (and he generally did), he would fly to Venice one day and then eat out an entire doughnut bakery the next (if he had the appetite at this point), and that would be the last time he would ride a gondola and the last time he ate a jelly-filled Berliner and he would be perfectly fine with it. There was no time in the world for repeats, unless the subject at hand was regarding Pepper.

So it made perfectly no sense to him why this was the ninth time in three weeks that he came along Tea and Tennyson.

Really, it was charming in the way that those shacks on a Little House on the Prairie set was charming, or a shiny clown car that ran out of engine every five feet, or a woman with a great personality and buck teeth. In other words, not the kind of charming Tony was interested in. In fact, he had his own library—both paperback and digital—back in his own many homes. Complete with tea imported straight from India that was probably better for his health, coffee from Brazil that would negate the health benefits of aforementioned tea, and scones popped out from an Englishman’s oven. He could squash this little development with a thumbnail if he wanted to.

But he didn’t. He’d like to think that Stark Industries’ corporate social responsibility included letting midget indie companies get a head start, even though his company had nothing to do with books and tea.

And it wasn’t like he opposed the eccentric but creative decorum of the bookstore, or the soft jazz music playing somewhere on the ceiling upstairs, or Steve’s antique but welcoming friendliness (Tony spent nearly an hour trying to convince Steve to rename the store ‘Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood’ when Steve put toy trains on the cashier counter as bookends), and definitely not opposed to the perfect opportunity to people-watch. Like the guy who limped like his ass was broken and looked like a rock and roll Robin Hood, or the strangely quiet and pale man in the corner who drained Natasha’s stock of Darjeeling tea from his own mug from morning to closing.

Or, if Tony would be honest with himself, that somewhat scraggly but mild-mannered man who sat around reading _Ulysses_ every—single—day.

Finally, Tony couldn’t take the aura of mystery anymore. No one in their right mind would tackle James Joyce with only decaffeinated coffee. While the man quietly reached the one-third point of the book after maybe a good four weeks, Tony pulled up a chair and seated himself right next to him.

“Do you even enjoy that?” said Tony.

Subtlety was never an art he bothered to master.

The man looked up maybe five seconds after Tony spoke, as if surprised that someone as even addressing him.

“It’s interesting,” he said.

“Really?” said Tony. “Because I could have sworn I saw your light bulb burn out over your head.”

“They say it’s the number one book on the list of greatest American classics,” said the man.

“Do they rank that by word count or the number of drinks they need to consume to make the book more interesting for them?” said Tony.

The man’s eyes darted from Tony to the door. “Er—can I help you?”

“Nope,” said Tony. He raised his head. “The name’s Tony Stark. I’ve seen you a lot, and you’re always here trying to read that thing and I figured I could loosen you from your misery.”

The man hesitated before taking Tony’s hand—or more accurately, his fingers, as if afraid he would crush Tony’s metacarpals.

“Bruce Banner,” he said. “And I’m not miserable.”

“I was when I read that thing,” said Tony. “Then when Pepper told me to give it another try, I was ready to dive headfirst out of my window by the end of it.”

“You read Joyce twice?” said Bruce, raising his eyebrows.

“More like endured. What, I don’t look like the literary type?” said Tony. “Surely a billionaire changing the world’s energy generation and shaping the new face of America can kick back and read something other than an article of himself.”

“Thought you’d be off discovering new elements or something,” said Bruce. “Or studying up astrophysics because you felt like it. That’s what your biography said; it’s swimming around the bookshelves somewhere downstairs.”

“Cap’s got a good inventory,” said Tony. “And I’ve done all those before, so why would I do them again? Life needs surprises, new experiences.”

“Really? Because I see you here pretty often,” said Bruce, sipping his coffee.

“New books,” said Tony. “This week’s _One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest._ Cap makes me recommendations. He said he reminded me of the main character McMurphy. I’m honored.”

“Did he say that because you two are both influential and gregarious and have a reputation regarding women?” said Bruce.

“Like I said, I’m honored,” said Tony. “Pepper’s so proud of me, she thinks I finally found a hobby and am distracting myself from things. I’m just buying my time until she finally gives herself vacation days and I can whisk her off to somewhere like—I don’t know where I haven’t been—Iceland, or something.” He coughed into his fist, grimacing at the aftertaste. “What are you doing all the time here, anyway? Ulysses can only entertain you for so long.”

“Taking a temporary break from work,” Bruce said. He smiled wearily. “Doctor said I might be getting too stressed out.”

“Doctors,” said Tony with a snort. “They’ll say anything to make you think they’re helping you get better, when really all you need is a stiff drink and a night out.” He flipped through Steve’s copy of _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?_ as if he was fanning himself. “What job are you taking a break from?”

Bruce gave Tony a crooked smile.

“I’m a doctor,” he said.

Tony blinked before clearing his throat and folding his hands diplomatically on the checkered table.

“Well that was unexpected,” said Tony.

“Was it?” Bruce said with a laugh.

“I mean, I never thought of doctors having doctors. It’s like thinking my plumber paid someone to fix his sink, or a therapist can’t pull herself together. I just never really think of that, you know? Are you okay?”

“What?”

“I mean—if your doctor says you’re stressing out, it probably isn’t because you’re baking cookies with the glow of your smile.”

“I’m—yeah, I’m fine. I’m just—you know—it’s a high-stress job and I’m not as sturdy with stress as others and—” A nervous laugh. “What about you?”

“Oh, please don’t make these those awkward ‘how are you,’ ‘good, and you?’ ‘good, and you?’ conversations between us,” said Tony.

“No, I’m just asking because you seem to have a thing against doctors,” said Bruce. “Most people don’t have that problem unless they’ve had more experiences with their doctor than they care for.”

Tony tapped the table with his fingernail. He coughed into his elbow and managed to crack a sheepish smile.

“What are you trying to do, Doc?” said Tony. “Diagnose my inner angst?”

“Hey, I’m on leave, remember?” said Bruce.

Tony grinned.

“You know,” said Tony. “I’ve got facilities in Stark Tower that are guaranteed to be stress-free and relaxing. You should drop by, it’s like candyland…”

-

“His name’s Loki Laufeyson, you know.”

Clint and Steve jumped at the sound of Natasha’s voice behind them. Clint nearly knocked over his iced milk tea and Steve instinctively hid his sketchpad against his chest from straying eyes. Natasha scoffed and hit the both of them on the back of their heads.

“Whose name is Loki?” Clint said.

“Don’t play innocent,” said Natasha. She nodded toward the dark-haired man in the corner, scrawling on several leaves of paper and plowing through his fourth mug of Darjeeling. “I see you two gaping at him this whole time.”

“In my defense, I’m sketching him,” said Steve, placing the sketchpad back on the paper.

“Which is still just as creepy,” said Clint.

Steve blushed furiously. “I have Bucky watching the table for a little bit. It’s just that Peggy loves it when I sketch the things and people I see and give it to her. She hasn’t seen the shop before.”

“Your beau?” said Clint, blowing bubbles through his straw into his caramel-colored drink. “Why doesn’t she stop by? It’s not far from her place, is it?”

Steve bent down to perfect the shape of Loki’s eyes on paper, his nose nearly prodding Loki’s papery chest.

“She’s uh, she’s at the hospital every day, and busy,” said Steve. “And I like drawing for her. It makes me happy too.”

Clint shrugged and leaned back in his chair. Loki in the corner was now resting his head in his thin hand, green eyes narrowed as if the paper he wrote on had grossly offended him and his mother.

“How do you know his name’s Loki?” said Clint.

“He clears out my boxes of Darjeeling leaves in one sitting,” said Natasha. “When a man does that to you, you sort of make him obligated to give his name.”

Loki was now tapping his fingers rhythmically on the table until they drummed faster than the rain on the roof above them.

“He looks like a starving writer,” said Clint. “Or a vampire.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” said Steve, shading in the folds of Loki’s button-down.

“I mean, when he comes in, he’s here from sunrise to sunset,” said Clint. “Maybe he stays indoors to hide the fact that he sparkles.”

Steve gave a heavy sigh. “Of all the vampire literature I sell…”

Clint smirked.

“Hey Nat,” he said.

“When you call me that, I know you’re planning my demise,” Natasha said.

“Not demise,” said Clint. “More like a bit of fun and games.”

“Clint, I have a reputation to maintain if you still want my caramel mocha.”

“Go up there and talk to Loki,” said Clint. “Find out why he’s a half-dead Slenderman running on tea leaves.”

“Leave of absence sure is boring you, isn’t it?” Natasha said.

“Look at him,” said Clint. “Don’t tell me you aren’t wondering.”

Natasha did look at him. He was frightfully pale, as if someone sucked him out of a silver screen movie and for good measure locked him in a dark room to siphon out all his color, save the ink black hair that tentatively curled at his nape. Everything about his was lean lines and sharp angles, and it was almost a surprise that he didn’t puncture through everything he touched.

“He looks foreign,” said Steve.

“Welsh?” said Clint. “Oh, who am I kidding, I can’t tell.”

“Sounds like he and you will have a great conversation when you do your own interrogating,” Natasha said, starting to move back to her counter.

“Hey, hey, come on, Nat,” said Clint, tugging at her wrist. “Look—” Loki raised his trademark black mug to his lips only to find it parched. He frowned as if this was a great offense. “He’s going to sap some more tea leaves out of you. Just go and ask him for his life story. He looks like the type who would spill you a monologue when given the chance.”

“You really need a new hobby,” said Natasha.

“I’ve been telling him the same,” Steve said with a chuckle, adding touches to Loki’s hand curled around the pen.

“You stare at people for a hobby,” said Clint. “Nat, Nat, Nat, he’s walking up to the counter!”

Natasha hit him across the back of the head again for good measure before hurrying to the counter. Loki regarded her with raised eyebrows and a tight-lipped smile, his longer fingers wrapped protectively around his mug.

“Another cup of Darjeeling for you?” she said, unscrewing her tin of tea leaves.

“As always,” said Loki.

When Natasha took the mug from him and turned away to pour hot water, she could positively feel his gaze pierce through the back of her head, as sharp as his elbows and collarbones. And it didn’t help that she could have sworn that she heard Clint sniggering in the background underneath Edith Piaf’s vibrato on the radio.

“If it would put prodding minds at ease,” said Loki as Natasha spooned crinkling tea leaves from the jar, “you can tell your little friend that I’m neither a writer nor am I Welsh.”

Natasha stiffened for a second before reclaiming her composure.

“You’ve got a good sense of hearing,” she said, letting the leaves sit in the teapot.

Loki scoffed softly. “More accurately, your friend caws like a hawk.”

“Not a fan of euphemisms, are you?” Natasha said. When Loki narrowed his eyes at her, she bristled. “Look, he didn’t mean any offense.”

“Neither do I; I was merely stating a fact,” said Loki. His accent was clipped and smooth, and definitely not Welsh.

Natasha clenched her teeth, feeling her boundaries of lenient customer service steadily shrink.

“I apologize on his behalf,” Natasha said. “You just draw people’s curiosity.”

“Never realized I was the resident Boo Radley,” said Loki. His voice made Natasha think of silver water—silky, molten, and when it freezes like icicles it forms spears.

Natasha poured the pale gold tea into his mug. “Well, you’re not a Welsh writer, then who are you?”

“Don’t tell me you’re actually humoring your little friend’s insatiable inquisitiveness,” said Loki.

“Maybe I just want to know who’s gracing me with his loyal business,” Natasha said.

“Careful. You could dry the Garden of Eden into a wasteland with that sarcasm.”

“Why, I’m sincere.”

“And I’m gullible. Come, does it matter if I drink Darjeeling with the false impression of being under the Welsh flag?”

“Curiosity isn’t a sin.”

“Neither is talking loudly on one’s cell phone in the tube, but you cannot possibly convince me that you don’t mind it in the slightest.”

Natasha widened her eyes like a child’s doll. “So possessive over your biographical information. Are you doing this just to heighten up your mysterious aura?”

“More like because withholding will inevitably make you itch,” said Loki.

“That’s a lot of flattery you’re giving yourself,” said Natasha.

Loki held out dollar bills to pay for his tea.

“Shall I play up my supposed eccentricity, then?” said Loki. “To drive your friend mad?”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Natasha. “Born and raised in England, aren’t you?”

Loki’s smile was just as tight-lipped and chiseled as ever, but his eyes flashed.

“I couldn’t put my finger on why your friend thought me Welsh,” he said.

“But you have a Norwegian name,” said Natasha. “So either you’re half or your family moved.”

The corner of Loki’s smile twitched. “I suppose I won’t have to look any further should I want a biographer.”

“And you’re not a writer,” said Natasha, “but that doesn’t mean you don’t have your way with language. Translator? No, you wouldn’t dedicate yourself to another’s work. That I can tell a mile away. A public speaker? You’d rally a whole crowd to lynch you with your sarcasm.”

“Reasonable,” Loki said.

“A musician,” said Natasha. “Namely, a pianist.”

Loki gave Natasha a long look. Natasha handed Loki his mug of Darjeeling, a primly polite smile on her face.

“Will that be all?” she said.

“Well, well,” said Loki. “Looks like someone here is wasted running a simple-minded store.”

Natasha felt her eyebrow twitch. “You don’t know where I belong.”

“Maybe I can guess where you do not,” said Loki. “So what gave it away? My fingers? Or have you actually heard of me before?”

“Your sheet music is all over your table,” said Natasha.

Loki looked over his shoulder toward the spindly table completely invisible underneath the sheets and sheets of inked music. His lips curled into a smile as he took the cup from her.

“Tell your friend,” said Loki, “that if he wants to be a more effective secret service agent, he should take more tips from you.”

Loki returned to his chair just in time to miss Natasha feel the color from her face, her eyes, even her hair, drain away. She flashed a content smile to his retreating back before surreptitiously sidling back to Clint and Steve’s table under the guise of collecting used cups.

Clint spun in his chair to face her, speaking in a hushed voice.

“So? Did it work or not?” he said.

Natasha cast another glance at Loki. Loki briefly looked up from his papers and his lips stretched into a sly smile.

“You really need to work on not getting yourself compromised,” she said under her breath. 


	2. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our seven harbor more in their hearts than they're willing to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for taking the time to read this! This chapter is loooong, about +9k words! Hopefully it'll be ideally entertaining in some way~

The stranger barreled through the glass door of Tea and Tennyson like he ran across the world just to come here, and yet he still looked completely lost. He was broader and taller than Steve was, with shocking blond hair tied in the back and a three-piece suit that Tony Stark would deign to nod in approval at.

His presence (which nearly shattered Steve’s door, might he add) made many people in the bookshop jump and his books shudder in their shelves. Even Steve nearly knocked over his cash register in surprise. The man, almost wincing at his own strength, tried to silently close the door behind him and promptly knocked the bell off its hook.

“My apologies,” the man said, brushing the bell into his fingers that could easily crush it with the slightest pinch. “I did not mean to be so rough.”

“It’s okay,” Steve said, taking back the bell and fixing it in its proper place. “Everything all right? You look frazzled.”

“I—well—of course I am,” said the man. He had an accent that made his voice almost rumble like summer thunder. “I am in need of a book.”

“Well, we’ve got a few,” said Steve. “What’s the need?”

“I want to find a book for my fiancée as an anniversary gift,” said the man. “Except I don’t recall the title—ah, I should have written it down, I told myself to, and yet—”

A cellphone chimed loudly and the man winced, slapping his hand against his pants pocket to silence it. Steve offered him a consoling smile.

“I can help you out,” said Steve. “Any idea who’s it by, or what it’s about?”

“Let’s see,” said the man, checking his watch. “Oh dear—all right, I know that there’s something about one of the British kings. She has been dying to read it for some time. The one with the wives—Henry the…”

“Henry VIII?” said Steve.

“Sure, yes,” said the man. “And one of his wives has a sister, and there’s something between them, and there are scandals, and I believe at least two people die at the end…”

“You might be talking about _The Other Boleyn Girl,_ ” said Steve. “Is that it?”

“Oh, it must be!” said the man. “That might—oh, I’m sorry, please hold on…”

His cellphone was ringing again and the man hastily dug it out of his pocket to check the message. He pressed his lips into a thin line.

“Did they really have to reschedule the meeting to _now?”_ he said to himself. He turned to Steve with so much desperation Steve suddenly felt convicted to feed him to save him from starvation. “How long will you stay open today?”

“We generally stay open until six,” said Steve. At the sight of the man’s face falling, Steve hastily added, “If you don’t mind, I can ship it to you. If you give me your name and address, I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

“Do you usually offer that service?”

“No, but if you need it…”

The man shook his head. “I’ll make time. Please—if you can—put the book on hold for me? My name is Thor Odinson—I should be able to sneak out around four thirty.” Another buzz of the phone. “Make that five. I can run.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve said. “And if anything, I can—well, if you want, I can give you my number and I can deliver it to you. It really won’t be a problem.”

“You’ve no idea how much that helps me,” said Thor. He was already straightening his tie for another meeting. “I thank—” And he was already gone before the next word.

Steve scanned the shelves for the historical fiction novel when Clint bounded down the stairs from the café, carrying a stack of Harry Potter books in his arms. He looked both ways, nearly pressing his face against the window to peer out the streets.

“Was that guy that came by Thor Odinson?” said Clint.

“How do you know him?” said Steve, wrapping the book in brown packaging paper.

“I know his girlfriend,” said Clint. “Jane something. I ran into her during my work.”

“Your work of what?” said Steve.

“Trapeze artist at the circus,” Clint said.

Steve rolled his eyes. Last time he asked, Clint said he was an ornithologist. The time before, a Renaissance fair demonstrator.

“He’s a high-ranking businessman,” said Clint. “I remember seeing him with Jane that one time I ran into her. That guy’s ripped.”

“The guy’s busy is what he is,” said Steve. He slipped the book in a drawer in the front table. “I don’t think I could ever handle such a high-paced life. Even now I sometimes feel like I don’t have enough time for other things.”

“Like what?” said Clint. “Knitting? Or is it Peggy?”

Steve wetted his lips before giving a tentative chuckle. “Yeah, Peggy. Hard to be apart from your girl, you know?”

“How’d she like your sketch of our neighborhood Grim Reaper?” said Clint.

“His name’s Loki, and Peggy really liked it,” said Steve, turning away to wipe the mirrors. “And the stories I tell her about everyone here. She got a kick out of how Natasha pinned Tony to the wall with just a spork when he made the comment about the cinnamon rolls.”

“You should totally bring her in one day,” said Clint. “She can see us ruin your business’s rep firsthand.”

Steve laughed softly. “I don’t know. I mean, I’d love that, but…she’s pretty busy all the time.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” said Clint. “Working at the hospital and all that. Still, silent reading time isn’t just for kids, and I feel like if you’re going to draw our faces then that equals instant friendship.”

“Working?” said Steve. “Oh—yeah—she’s been super busy lately. But we still manage to have time together and that’s all that matters.”

Clint gave a low whistle. “You two are like, having the perfect life.”

Steve paused in his wiping down the window. He bit his lip, suddenly feeling very foreign in his own shoes. In his mind, he could see Peggy’s wide grin, her glittering eyes, feel the rhythm of her knuckles underneath his thumbs, and just standing there he loved Peggy so much it hurt him deep and full.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice itching his own throat like feathers. “Yeah, we really do.”

He cleared his throat, hiding his face as he stowed away the cleaning supplies.

“So have you seen Tony lately?” Steve said, bearing his warm smile again. “I haven’t seen him pass by lately, and he usually comes...”

-

“How good are you with books?”

Bruce looked up from page three hundred and ninety-eight of _Ulysses._ Tony had a tower of novels balanced in the crook of his arm, but eyes for only one blandly covered book in his hand. He sat down at Bruce’s table, letting his Babel splatter on the table without remorse. Bruce cringed as the impact made his chamomile splash onto his pants.

“Glad to see you again too,” said Bruce, shifting his laptop bag further from the table.

Tony chuckled. He had dark shadows under his eyes—at least, they were darker than before, if he always had them. He cleared his throat once—twice—before motioning that he was going to order a drink. When he came back with iced water, Bruce scrutinized him.

“You down with something?” he said.

“Sniffles,” said Tony, coughing into a napkin. “I’ll live.”

“Sniffles, my ass,” said Bruce. “You insult me.”

Tony rolled his eyes and leaned back in the chair.

“Fine, I’m wheezing a bit. That’s all.” He took a swig of water and began coughing in mid-swallow. Water spurted from his lips and onto his pants and he winced. “Well, there goes my dry cleaning bill.”

“Is that why you’ve been out of commission for a while?” said Bruce. “If you have whooping cough or something—”

“I’m fine, Bruce, I’m not contagious,” said Tony. He wiped his lips with a napkin. “Yeah, I was down with something for a bit, but I’m walking fine. So are you good with books or not?”

“I’m not the one running the bookstore,” said Bruce. “Why?”

Tony pushed a book toward Bruce. Bruce leafed through it, frowning.

“What’s wrong with it?” he said.

“Is it accurate or not?” said Tony.

Bruce checked the back of the book. It was a history book regarding Julius Caesar’s death, from what he could gather.

“Did you find this in the fiction section or the history section?” said Bruce.

“Come on, Bruce, it’s more than that,” said Tony. “All I want to know is, is this just a theory, a conspiracy, or is there a grain of truth in it?”

“Tony, I haven’t even read this before,” said Bruce. “What makes you so doubtful?”

“They say that Caesar was epileptic,” said Tony. “That he—okay, so he was epileptic and he was already dying from illness, dying of something I forget—and he wanted to make sure that his name and rep wasn’t tainted by such a lame way to go, so he arranged the whole stabbing thirty-seven times so he could go with a bang. Is that true?”

“I—can’t say I know,” Bruce said, edging just a mite away from the table. “What does it matter? He got stabbed.”

“I mean, is that logical thinking?” said Tony. “Especially someone who had everything— _everything—_ like Caesar. Is it logical thinking to think, ‘Hey, I’m like the most powerful man in the world and life is going my way, except I have this health problem that may or may not make me die long in the future, but I’m going to let my friends shank me so I can look less like a weakling and more like a whipped bitch?’”

He paused to catch his breath, rubbing his chest. Bruce pursed his lips, watching Tony carefully. Just watching Tony with his chest heaving and his darkened eyes troubled, it felt like he was about to break off and crumble like rusting metal.

“Tony,” Bruce said. “What’s wrong?”

Tony’s gaze snapped up toward Bruce. He swallowed hard.

“Sorry,” said Tony. “Did I go a little hysterical?”

“Just a bit,” said Bruce.

Tony smacked his lips. “Well, that’s a little awkward.”

“Is something the matter?”

“No,” Tony said in such a tone that one would think Bruce was accusing Tony of hating Pepper. “I just have a passion for dead ancient dictators. It’s nothing.”

“You’re one of a very few.”

“I like going against the current.”

Bruce crossed his arms. “So, what’s your question?”

“Is that even something Caesar would do?” Tony said, leaning forward with rejuvenated passion. “I mean, Caesar—did he care about image, did he know that dying by the hands of murder will brand him in history, or did he care about not wanting to die a drawn-out death by health complications, or what? Is that the thought process of a madman, or is it perfectly logical? Is it—I don’t know—does that justify the fact that he killed himself off early in the game?”

“So what I’m hearing,” said Bruce, “is not the question of ‘Did this really happen?’ but more like ‘Which is the better choice?’”

Tony’s bottom jaw twitched. “Digging pretty deep, aren’t you, Sherlock?”

“Too deep for your taste?” said Bruce.

“I want to know the accuracy,” said Tony. “That’s all. Zip. Let’s steer away from the suspicion that I’m having existential crises and get to the bare bones of it.”

More like the thinnest surface, if Bruce had any say in it. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“I’m not a historian,” said Bruce. “I mean, what does the book say, what is its evidence?”

“I don’t trust the book entirely—” said Tony.

“Then you’re in for a hell lot of inconveniences,” said Bruce.

“—so can I borrow your laptop?” said Tony. “This place just got free Wifi, I’m set.”

“You’re going to trust the internet over a possible historian,” said Bruce.

“Is that even surprising in this day and age?” said Tony. “Please? I’ll buy you a scone. You like scones, don’t you? Who am I kidding, scones are terrible—muffins. Chocolate chip muffins, toasted, come on, Brucey.”

“Just take it,” said Bruce, rubbing his brow.

Tony leaned forward to pull Bruce’s laptop bag from the floor. He balanced it unsteadily on his lap, patting the heavily padded bag uncertainly to find the proper pocket.

“I might need the outlet for this one as well, just in case,” said Tony. He reached his hand into one of the smaller pockets. “I usually carry my phone everywhere, but Pepper recommended I try not to depend on it and live life without a screen to—”

He frowned and extracted his hand. When Bruce saw the orange and white capsule in Tony’s grasp, he suddenly felt as if his mind of rubber bands completely snapped apart, and everything that it was holding back suddenly flooded his senses with fire and choked him.

“Put that down,” Bruce said.

Before Tony could react, Bruce slammed his hand onto the table. His cup of chamomile flew off and shattered on the floor; all of Tony’s books spilled over the edge and landed in an ungraceful heap. Tony nearly fell out of his chair and someone gasped nearby.

“I said _put that down!_ ”

Tony slowly returned the medication back to its proper place. He lowered his eyes, hastily zipping the pocket closed. When the black haze in Bruce’s mind dissipated, his blood ran cold and he became all too aware of his shaking fingers, his gritted teeth, and the hushed silence heavy on his skin. Suddenly, shame and horror made his nerves nearly explode in him and he let out a groan.

“Tony, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I don’t—that was—I’m sorry. That was mean. I just—I overreacted and I do that a lot and I’m—”

“Don’t,” said Tony. “It was my bad. I shouldn’t be touching your stuff.”

“No, it’s just, it’s—” Bruce didn’t know what to say. _Sorry you had to see the reason why I have to take temporal leave from my job in the first place, sorry you had to see my meds and probably think I’m crazy and should be institutionalized, sorry that I probably lost my first new acquaintance since Steve in years?_ It was far too clear to him how much more familiar the horrified stares of the people around him was than Tony’s words of understanding, how much more he deserved the former than the latter.

“I should be going,” said Bruce. He got onto his knees on the floor to pick up the books and the scraps of his abused mug, carefully shoveling the broken porcelain into a napkin. “No—please—I got it,” he said when Tony moved to help.

 He threw the books onto the table and the broken cup into the waste bin. Before Tony could call out for him, Bruce hurried down the stairs, running away—again—from that shadow of a monster that he couldn’t stop feeding and caging inside himself, and out the door before Steve could tell him goodbye.

He didn’t even remember to take his laptop bag with him, meds and all.

-

“So let me get this straight.”

It was only Loki and Natasha in the café; it was nearly closing time and she could swear that Loki lingered in the café until the very last minute just to obstruct her as she closed shop. He still had his sheet music sprawled on two tables and made no movement that hinted he was clearing up anytime soon. Natasha swept crumbs and shredded napkins from the floor, occasionally accidentally-on-purpose knocking against Loki’s chair or table and sniggering as Loki would glower at her for half a minute as if he expected her to get the hint and—more impossibly—act upon it to his benefit.

“You write music in my teahouse,” said Natasha, “despite the fact that you haven’t a piano around to test how it sounds like, nor do you even sing it out loud.”

“I don’t really know what part you’re so confused about,” Loki said, yawning.

Natasha’s eyebrow twitched.

“I can understand writers burrowing themselves here to draw inspiration,” said Natasha. “This is their hotspot. Their niche, to say the least. What can you get out of coming here?”

“Passable Darjeeling,” said Loki. “For the city that never sleeps, its tea is weaker than its conviction.”

“Glad that I can adequately hydrate you,” said Natasha.

Loki was tapping his fingers on the table again, frowning as he chiseled out a doable rhythm before scrawling on the paper.

“For your information,” said Loki, “there is inspiration for music anywhere where there is sound.”

“Does it now?”

“The rumble of conversation, thumping of cups against table, even the turning of book pages can be translated into notes. If one is fluent in the language, anyway.”  

Natasha emptied her dustpan into the trash. “So you sort of eavesdrop all around you and turn that into music.”

Loki chuckled. “Only for a little while. It’ll be a collection. I’ll find my new niche elsewhere. Perhaps somewhere more exciting and less homely.”

Natasha dragged Loki’s second table back to its proper place, taking along his papers with it. Loki scowled and stood from his seat to retrieve them.

“What have you turned my café into?” she said. “It’s not going to be rock piano or anything, I’m sure.”

“Take today,” said Loki. “The couple that laughed uncontrollably around noon. Can be expressed by trills or staccatos in E major. G sharp with the left hand. Move to an idyllic pattern of the left hand with right hand melody when conversation mellows to contentment. You blending ice put a thirty-second triplets somewhere after the key change when it began to rain. And then our friend Dr. Banner and Mr. Hyde’s outburst paved way to classic dissonance.”

Natasha stiffened at the mention of Bruce. She would be lying if she said she didn’t drop a cup at his episode.

“What’s with you and name-calling?” said Natasha. “He’s Steve’s friend, and mine too.”

“Merely stating a fact,” said Loki. “And doesn’t it apply to all? Little monsters burrowing in caves in our hearts, waiting for a finger to reach in so they can snap them off with their jaws.”

“So, are you a vying pianist or are you established?” said Natasha, loudly banging the dustpan against the side of the trashcan. “As in, can I YouTube you and actually find something?”

“Yes,” said Loki.

Natasha huffed at his noncommittal answer.

“Would you be embarrassed if I listened to it?” said Natasha.

“Do you seek to puff my ego or to mortify me?” said Loki. “Regardless, the results of either may be unpleasant for you.”

“I’ll have to find that out once I get a good listen,” said Natasha. “Ever had any concerts? Or iTunes?”

“You can seek me out yourself if you’d like,” said Loki, shuffling his papers into a neat pile. “I seem to garner more of a following in Iceland, ironically enough.”

“You should do a tour or something,” said Natasha. “Or you could go viral on YouTube if you do something crazy. Play piano with a cat, or just bat those pretty-boy eyelashes at the camera.”

“Would that capture your attention?” Loki said with a snort.

“It’d make me laugh,” said Natasha.

Loki capped his ink pen. He watched Natasha with his ridiculously green eyes that could either resemble malachite or poison.

“Tell me,” said Natasha. “How do you know Clint?”

“Your secret admirer?” When Natasha shot a withering glare at him, he shrugged. “All right, I’ll be more specific: your secret admirer that doesn’t sit in a chair properly.”

“He’s not my secret admirer and he can sit in a chair fine,” said Natasha. “What you said about him last week—about him being an agent of secret services—”

“How did I figure it out?” said Loki. “So you’re saying it’s true?”

“I was saying it’s false,” Natasha said. “If the country depended on him protecting us, we’re screwed.”

Loki laughed. “You’re not the only one who can figure out people’s occupation at the drop of a dime.”

Natasha bit her tongue behind her casual smile and wondered why she hadn’t made any effort to kick him the hell out of her teahouse yet.

“Natasha Romanoff,” said Loki. “You seem like the last person to ever open a teahouse.”

“Still hung up on that?” said Natasha.

“I just wonder what led you to this little block,” said Loki. “Instead of—I don’t know—a modeling agency in Paris. Or a federal agency in Washington D.C.”

Natasha felt her heart skip a beat at the mention of the latter. She ran the used mugs and saucers through the sink, scouring them with a foaming sponge. The hot water clawed her skin and it took all her willpower not to withdraw her hand.

“And I wonder how a Norwegian came from England to New York City to write music in a little café,” said Natasha.

“It’s a terrible story,” said Loki. “I wouldn’t want to bore you.”

“Neither do I,” said Natasha.

Loki spread out his arms as if to welcome her in his domain—her own teahouse. “Tell me,” he said.

Natasha stared at him—half wondering if he was only messing with her—before occupying her attention fully on a stubborn lipstick stain on one of her mugs. Loki was still, in all technical regards, a stranger, and an occasionally irksome one at that. Why he expected her to soliloquize her life story to him, she didn’t know.

On the other hand, if she told, maybe she could wheedle out more information from him. If the two of them were going to play the secret game, she was going to make sure she wasn’t the one losing.

“I was born in Russia,” said Natasha. “Came to the United States when I was in my teens. Got my citizenship. That was a little over ten years ago. Your turn.”

“I didn’t know we were doing an exchange,” said Loki.

“What, you think I like talking about myself to a megalomaniac?” said Natasha.

“Tsh, your customer service leaves much to be wanted,” said Loki. He rested his chin on interlocked fingers like a mafia boss; Natasha felt that kick of instinct to draw a gun to his face and wait for him to make her pull the trigger. She shuddered at the thought.

“Born in Norway,” said Loki. “Was brought to be raised in England. Came here when I was twenty-one. Must have been four years ago by now. Yours.”

“I used to dance ballet back in Russia,” said Natasha. “Up until I moved. That and martial arts. I never got the main roles in dances because the instructors said my shoulders were too broad.” She caught sight of Loki’s furrowed eyebrows. “What? Not the information you wanted?”

“No,” said Loki. “Not the information I expected.” He sighed, placing his fingers on his lips. “Fenced since I was three. Played piano since I was five. My caretaker was never very fond of the fact that I dabbled with music more than his alma mater glory.”

“Caretaker?” said Natasha.

“Warden. Zookeeper. Prison guard,” said Loki. “Take your pick.”

“Father?” said Natasha.

Loki’s eyes grew steely. “No.”

Natasha set the mugs aside to dry.

“My family died when I was young,” said Natasha. “I was raised in the Red Room—that’s a strict school and orphanage in Russia, mind you—and no one liked me there. The teachers thought I was a bully, when in fact I was the one getting bullied.” She shrugged. “That’s not to say I didn’t retaliate, but I didn’t start it.”

“What did they do to you?” said Loki.

“Nothing harsh, in retrospect,” said Natasha. “Just excluded me. Called me childish names. Got me into trouble. I used to blackmail them in return. Kid stuff. Your turn.”

Loki lipped his thin lips.

“You know,” he said, “they say that telling your life story to a complete stranger can either make you fall in love with them—”

“Don’t count on it,” said Natasha.

“—or despise them,” said Loki. “I asked the simplest question, and you are giving me things of your past. Not opposed to it, of course, but I wonder how desperate you are to avoid answering my question by instead trying to interest me with things that you think don’t matter to you anymore.”

“The past comes and goes and what does it matter?” said Natasha. “I’m Russian, I know. Or at least I was.”

“And what are you now?”

“Leaving.” Natasha set her last plates and bowls out to dry and pulled on her raincoat. “Unless you want to take a kip here alone, I suggest you should too.”

Loki rolled his eyes before slipping his papers into his folder. Before he could follow her down the stairs, Natasha spun around, holding up a hand.

“You never told me about your family,” said Natasha.

“Oh, so now we’re still playing?” said Loki.

“If you want the rest of our little games to play fair here on out, you can’t break the system now,” said Natasha. “Unless, of course, you want your Darjeeling to have a touch of broomrape next time you come along here.”

“Maybe my piece on coffee shops is already finished.”

“Maybe you need a second glance because this place is a teahouse.”

Loki gave a crooked smile.

“Do you want a riveting story? Because you won’t have one,” said Loki. “My family is dead. Died a long time ago. I never knew them. And I never knew one ever since.”

Natasha could see it, even if she urged herself not to. The flicker in his eyes, the hesitation, the regret of speaking too soon. She had seen it in many behind bars, many behind her layers of past, many in her nightmares that fancy themselves memories in her mind.

Before, she would have cocked a gun, spoke in a low, husky tone that would send the victim pissing in their prisoner garb, and let their blood run. Today, she only smiled at him—soft, sad, like mist.

“Looks like we have more in common than we wanted,” she said.

-

The shop technically closed at six, but Steve stayed by the shop until seven fifteen doing bookkeeping duties as slowly as possible. By the time Thor’s taxi pulled up in front of the store and he bowled inside, nearly rendering the bell above the door into a wrecking ball, Steve had nearly resigned to going back home and leaving the book in the store’s mailbox because Peggy was surely waiting for him at this late hour and she needed him.

“I am so sorry,” said Thor, wiping his brow. His tie was loosened and his jacket was slung over his shoulder; he must have run straight from his board meetings to get here. “There were more issues than I expected that needed to be addressed and I had to be the one to present them all so I couldn’t sneak out, and then I got a phone call saying that my Visa for my business trip was going to mail in later than I expected, and—”

“It’s absolutely fine,” Steve said. The poor man looked like he was running a country with only a sledgehammer and a bird to help him. “I hope you aren’t late for your anniversary.”

“No, the dinner isn’t until nine,” said Thor. “Did you wait for me to come fetch the book before closing shop?”

“It wasn’t a problem,” said Steve. “Really, it wasn’t.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” said Thor. “They always say that the people in New York City were the most difficult, but that obviously isn’t the case.”

Steve chuckled as he fetched Thor’s book from the backroom. “If you heard all that, why’d you come here? Assuming you moved here, anyway.”

“I was relocated in my business two years ago,” said Thor. “From England.”

“Odinson?” said Steve.

Thor shrugged. “Well, Iceland first, then England. Anyway, I’m not from around here.”

“Ever get homesick?” said Steve.

Thor gave a weak chuckle. “Of course I do. My father’s a politician, so he can’t take the time to pay me a visit. And my mother is a nurse. They are both very great people.”

“Any siblings?”

Thor paused, frowning as if he didn’t quite catch the question. When he smiled, he looked so sad, as if the memories couldn’t decide whether to make him laugh or cry.

“A little brother,” said Thor. “Four years my junior. He’s a musician somewhere. I haven’t seen him in a while. He moved away years ago and I haven’t heard from him since.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, pursing his lips. At the word ‘musician,’ a certain black-haired Brit came to mind, but surely that was just coincidence. The world was a vast place, and they looked nothing alike.

Thor shook his head. “He’s all right, I think. He’s still out there composing—I buy his iTunes and sheet music even though I can’t play—so he’s…well, he’s not dead.” He lifted his head and his broad smile. “What about you? Were you from here originally?”

“Born and raised,” said Steve. “Um—my parents sort of died when I was little. But that’s okay—I mean, that sounded sort of callous, but what I mean is—you know—I’m doing fine and they’re at rest now.”

“Oh,” said Thor, and the look of a crestfallen puppy (more like lion, considering his build) returned. “My condolences.”

“No, don’t be,” said Steve. “I have great people in my life right now, and they help me get by.”

“Now and onward,” said Thor.

Steve hesitated before nodding with his trademark beam.

“Is there any other way?” he said.

He checked his watch and nearly jumped out of his skin. It was already seven twenty-three and he had told Peggy he’d be back by seven thirty at the latest. He had _promised_ her.

“I’m so sorry,” Steve said. He ran to fetch his jacket and umbrella; the rain had stopped by the sky was still a mottled green-gray like an infection. “I have to go—someone’s waiting for me and I can’t let them down.”

“No, I’m sorry for keeping you,” said Thor. “Thank you—again—for helping me.”

“Happy anniversary,” Steve said before ushering Thro ut the door and locking it behind them. Before he could feel the shyest of rainfall, he shuttled down the road, not bothering to open his umbrella as he ran.

It took him four minutes to run two blocks, all the while side-stepping fellow pedestrians and nearly crashing into motorcyclists on the road. It may have taken him seven if he didn’t have his umbrella to fend himself as people crowded the roads during the unending rush hour. By the time he reached Peggy’s apartment, the rain decided to screw with him and returned with determination to soak every inch of him. He might as well have swum the last stretch to her place and make it there on time.

He left puddles wherever he stepped on the carpeted apartment floor. He tried to straighten his hair and jacket as much as he could before knocking on Peggy’s door. It was already seven thirty-two—two minutes he couldn’t save, two minutes he couldn’t hide in a padlocked box and relish another time when there was nothing left, two more—

The door swung open. Sharon, Peggy’s little sister, gaped at his sopping entrance.

“Is your umbrella broken or something?” she said.

Steve looked down at his perfectly usable albeit closed umbrella in his hand, dripping from the tip.

“Would you believe me if I said I forgot about it?” said Steve.

Sharon rolled her eyes and let him through the door. He could smell chicken soup brewing in the kitchen, thin and wavering. He scuffed his shoes on the mat—not that it did much with his entire body sufficiently wet and leaving damp marks wherever he walked.

“How is she?” said Steve.

“We had a nice trip around Central Park,” said Sharon. “And we fed the ducks. Come on—she’s in the living room.”

Steve ran his hand through his hair to smooth it down again before following her into the living room. At the sight of Peggy, Steve’s heart lifted and sang and he couldn’t stop the grin from overtaking him. Even alongside the sight of her wheelchair, the breathing tube inserted in her neck, the gauntness of her small hands and pale face—but he only had eyes for her red-lipped, beautiful smile.

“Hi Peggy,” Steve said. He was about to sit on the couch across from her, but hastily corrected himself when he find his pants still wet. “Gosh, you wouldn’t believe it. I had that umbrella you gave me the whole time and I completely forgot to open it. It looks like I took a dip in the lake, doesn’t it?”

Peggy laughed, even though it sounded like huffing. The white tube in her neck whistled.

(“Lou Gehrig’s disease, Steve,” she had said to him. “That’s what I have.”

They were dancing together on the balcony of her apartment, with only the moonlight as their spotlight and the hum of cicadas as their music. He trod on her toes more than once, he remembered, and she was lovely.

“The doctors say,” she said. She stopped and swallowed hard. Her hands held fast onto him, as if she could stop moving forward to an inevitable fate if she just held on. “The doctors say there isn’t a cure. That I have at most five years.”

Steve drew her close, putting a protective hand behind her neck—the neck that ached so inexplicably for months, on the arms that couldn’t hold up her books steadily anymore, the slim form that was slowly deteriorating until it would die an old woman’s death at only her twenties.

“We’ll be all right, Peggy,” he said, because he was young, and naïve, and he didn’t know what it meant to slowly lose movement, lose speech, lose breath, lose control. “We’ll be together.”

That was three years ago, and she had already prepared her living will.)

“How was the walk?” he said. “Sharon said the ducks came back. Looks like after the lake freezes over they don’t have any problem finding their way back, huh?”

Peggy’s smile widened. She placed a small hand on Steve’s—he felt as if he would break it just by letting her touch him. With her other hand, she slowly typed out a message for him on her cell phone.

[Have any more sketches for me?]

Steve nodded. He pulled out his sketch pad from his messenger bag, giving thanks that it didn’t get wet. He flipped past the sketches of Loki, of Bruce and Clint playing Black Jack, of a bespectacled journalist drinking coffee, until he reached his most recent sketch of Natasha serving a young child hot cocoa. He held it up for Peggy to see.

“That’s Natasha,” he said. “She and Tony made amends, by the way. Tony promised not to make any more lewd comments regarding pastries, so long as she had anything remotely pointy within her reach.”

Peggy raised a shaky hand to trace the soft lines. She could barely keep her fingers on the page as they shook, and they couldn’t curve quite right along the sketch. But she traced the entire thing, as if she could feel how it felt like to draw this, how it felt to still be able to use hands to create something so delicate.

Steve took those fingers and kissed the tips.

(“How much longer?” he had asked.

Sharon pursed her lips. She was young, but so very tired.

“Less than a year,” she said.

They stood in silence. Sharon had less than a year to be a younger sister. Steve had less than a year to be her other half.)

They talked the evening away—or, Steve talked and Peggy responded on her phone, in between cups of chicken soup. Even Sharon joined in once in a while with a witty comment or snort of derisive laughter. By the end of it, it was already ten forty-five and the Big Apple’s display could be seen in the backdrop of black.

“It’s getting late,” said Steve. “I don’t want to keep you up.”

Her fingers curled around his; she could barely grip tight on him, but she didn’t need to. He squeezed back.

“I’ll be here again tomorrow,” said Steve. “How about I take you out? The shop doesn’t open on Sundays—maybe after church I can take you to the Met. They have a new section on Japanese art opening tomorrow.”

She smiled but gave no answer, instead running her thumb over his knuckles. He kissed her, and felt her shudder. When he pulled away, she couldn’t look at him, and the way she bowed her head hid the white tube breathing for her in her neck.

He stood to close the blinds of her apartment windows. The nocturnal lights of New York City winked at him outside, goading him to stay a while, to let the window remain open and all-seeing, but he slid closed the blinds and put the city to sleep.

His eyes welled. Every night he closed her blinds. This was nothing unfamiliar.

He returned to her, kneeling in front of her. He wished she could share his body, or he hers, and they would exist only as one, in the dark hum of their shared blood and bones, and know nothing else about the world—no incurable diseases, no wheelchairs or breathing tubes, no closed windows that meant days and nights were finite and were slowly counting down until their last day.

“Good night, Peggy,” he said. “Love you.”

Peggy gave a watery laugh. And mouthed the words back; her tongue was clumsy and she could only hum for him.

“I love you, Peggy,” he said. He kissed her forehead. “I love you.” Kissed her eyelids. “Love you.”

(“Tell me good night, every night, please,” Peggy had said when she still could speak.

“Don’t I always?” said Steve.

“I know,” said Peggy. She had come back from another check-up. Her hair was dull and lank, her face ashen, and shadows under her eyes, and she was the most beautiful girl Steve ever knew. “But I’m afraid, Steve. Afraid of sleeping. I don’t know if I’ll go in the middle of the night and I wouldn’t have said goodbye.”

Steve’s breath hitched in his throat, but he did not falter. It made sense, said the cold, sad voice in the back of his mind. When you’re dying an old death, you never know when you will go.)

_I love you, Steve,_ said her eyes locked with his. _I love you,_ said her shaking fingers cupping his face. _I love you_ , said her being, her existence, her soul.

-

Tony once registered for a bodybuilding contest. Just a bit of fun, really, and he was probably inebriated when he did so, because he remembered the perplexity and hilarity that ensued the morning he discovered the confirmation email. Pepper gave him one of those looks of hers for the rest of the day until he finally backed out of it, but not before convincing Pepper that his muscles were _stunning,_ thank you, and all he needed was about five protein shakes before he had the strength of iron.

Looking at his reflection now, shirt unbuttoned as he gripped the edge of his sink like he had no legs underneath to keep him upright, Tony would have laughed at the idea of him trying to lift even a dumbbell. He would have laughed, really, if it didn’t hurt.

“Well, hello, good looking,” he said. His voice rasped as if it was crudely sanded. His reflection stared back with dark eyes wedged in darker shadows. “You look like you’ve had better days.”

He coughed—spitting into his own face. He bowed over and coughed into the sink before splashing cold water onto his face. He wheezed, trying to catch his breath, and wondered if it was possible to drown from water droplets.

He slammed his fist into his chest and winced. His chest looked unmarred—perfect—clean, except for the shadow of ribs introducing themselves to his slowly wasting away form. Funny, he thought wryly, how underneath that façade was a bloated, molding, gunky pair of lungs that sucked at being lungs.

“So, big guy,” he said to himself. He ran a hand through his thick hair, over his eyebrows, his cleanly cut facial hair. “You haven’t shaved clean since you were twenty-one.”

He coughed again, barely able to catch breaths in between. Dinner. He wanted dinner with Pepper. Scratch that, he wanted Pepper to have dinner while he watched because if anyone tried to make him eat anything at this moment he swore he was going to vomit in their shoes.

“All the ladies always liked this hair, didn’t they?” he said. “Perfect condition for…bed ruffling, and such.”

He gave a wry smile. He ran a hand over his lips and sighed. His own breath felt brittle between his fingers.

Never kissed an ashtray either, yet here he was. Working in power plants may not have been his ticket to a good life after all.

(“Chemotherapy, Tony,” said the doctor while Tony sat in those flimsy, papery hospital gowns on a stiff bed in a blank room letting strangers tell him he was going to die and he felt so damn _cold_ , “may be our best choice now that the cancer’s reaching the next stage.” And all Tony could really register at that point was that damn, losing his hair was just going to make him colder)

Somewhere on the first floor, he heard the doorbell ring. He hastily buttoned back his shirt and slapped more cold water onto his face as if the shadows under his eyes were just stains. He bounded down the stairs wiping his face with his sleeve.

“JARVIS, get the door,” Tony said, clearing his throat to cough out the wheeze.

The door unlocked the moment Tony slid down the banister to the ground floor in impatience. Pepper stepped in, hair frazzled, carrying what looked like a metal suitcase and a bottle of gin.

“I came here as fast as I could,” said Pepper. “What’s the emergency? Is someone hurt?”

“Oh thank God you’re here, Pepper,” said Tony, placing his hands on her shoulders. “I need you.”

“What is it?” said Pepper. “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s have dinner,” said Tony.

The bottle of gin and metal suitcase fell to the ground with a resounding thud. Pepper stared at Tony with a mixture of disbelief and mortification, as if she should have damn well expected this from him.

“You said it was urgent,” Pepper said, her voice dangerously low.

“Well, it is,” said Tony. “We can’t eat two to three hours before bedtime and it’s already nine.”

“You said you needed me to come _right now,_ ” Pepper said. Her face was becoming redder than her hair.

“Pepper, you never knew me to be the most patient an in the world.”

“I brought gin and a _taser_ with me.”

“That’s my girl.”

Pepper looked as if she was about to down that entire bottle of gin herself.

“For your information,” Pepper said, and by God if her voice wasn’t enough to make Tony feel like he was locked in a refrigerator then he had nothing to fear from chemotherapy, “I already ate.”

“Bet you haven’t had fugu,” said Tony.

“I’m sorry—what?”

“Fugu. Puffer fish. Come on, I’ll take you out for sushi.”

“Tony, it’s a—”

“Saturday night, you have nothing to do tomorrow, we’re set. Need reservations? Screw reservations—I’ll just tell them I’m coming and they’ll clear the entire restaurant for me, stat.”

“Tony, do you need to tell me something?”

Tony pause before laughing.

“Is this a hint that I don’t treat you enough? Because I can rectify that,” he said.

“You don’t sound all right,” said Pepper.

“Well, you cleft my heart in twain,” said Tony. “You like that? That little bookstore on 57th has a whole collection of Shakespeare.”

“You’re still going there every afternoon?” said Pepper. “Is that where you are when you’re supposed to go to meetings?”

“It’s conventionally restful,” said Tony. “And there are interesting characters there all the time.”

“I thought you hated going to the same place more than once,” she said.

“I know,” said Tony. “I don’t. I don’t want to go to places I think I already know if it takes up time to see the rest of the world. But I do it anyway, and I don’t regret it.”

Maybe it was because he realized he may have little time to see anything at all.

“Tony,” said Pepper. “Are you okay?”

“No,” said Tony. “I’m hungry.”

Pepper hit him lightly on the chest. Tony hid a wince.

“So, fugu?” said Tony.

“Next time you interrupt my weekend, it better be because you’re on the brink of life and death,” said Pepper. “Deal?”

Tony swallowed down heavy coughs behind his careless grin.

“No deal,” he said.

-

Natasha had searched up Loki on YouTube when she returned home. Indeed, he was extremely popular in Iceland, since a good deal of the comments was written in Icelandic. She wondered if Loki could even read them.

They were stark pieces—that was as close as she could get to describing them. Some were jarring, sharp, with dissonant chords that made her jump in her seat and progressions that were seamless like water but forceful as if she was white water rafting. Others were mournful, and she could have sworn each solitary note was a tear in disguise just listening to it, or a drop of blood.

They all, funnily enough, were named after locations with no rhyme or reason behind it. There was ‘Bosworth Fields,’ ‘Okinawa,’ ‘Yorktown’—her favorite was ‘Balangiga,’ and she could have sworn that she heard screaming underneath the D minor. She was half-convinced that she was listening to Loki speak, except she couldn’t understand all the words he used. Only, when listening to piano piece after piano piece, she didn’t think that she was the only one in the world who felt something in her chest hurt at the sound of them.

Just as she was about to click on the next video in the playlist, she paused. Suddenly, she felt her heart clench up inside her, her blood itch in her veins, and she felt suddenly raw, stripped, as if she had been sent to the butcher’s.

Guantanamo Bay. That was the title of the next piece, and the name made her want to vomit.

And for a second she was afraid of listening to it—because what else could it be but an accusation, a guilt-trip, the very sound of screaming and gurgling that still kept her awake at night even now?

_You’re an idiot,_ she thought to herself. _He doesn’t know, and what does it matter? It’s past, it’s done, and it’s gone._

If Clint wants to be a more effective secret service agent, he should take more tips from you, Loki had said to her, and his eyes glinted as if telling her that he _knew_ , except he couldn’t have known otherwise he wouldn’t have said it.

Because if Clint was like how she was, he would have dishonored himself, he would have lied, he would have betrayed his country and _humanity_ , he would have handed over his badge and tried to redo life except even what was broken and fixed still had its visible cracks that proved more threatening than anything else.

She sucked in her breath and swallowed her fear (her irrational, useless, _painful, shameful fear_ ) before clicking on the link. The piece started off deadened, with resigned and jaded notes that struggled just to climb on the staff. It took Natasha perhaps half a minute of wondering before she realized that it sounded so much like guilt.

_Damn you,_ she thought to the piece. _Damn you,_ she thought to Loki for writing it. _Damn you,_ she thought to herself for understanding it.

Natasha leaned back in her chair, letting her head fall back. This was stupid. This was stupid because even if a stupid piano piece _was_ named after a place she knew all too well doesn’t mean that he knows anything about her, doesn’t mean that her past was returning to haunt her (because when did it ever stop?) and doesn’t mean that she should be overreacting like this.

But she could feel it—how the notes weighed down her bones, how they were heavy and black with guilt, with some untouchable shame; it made her stomach sink just listening to it, and she wondered just how eighty-eight keys on a piano could make her burn.

“Do you know?” she said.

She was alone in her apartment, this Manhattan flat on 11th Avenue that constantly smelled of cigarette smoke and acrylic paint, but she could almost feel the sickening heat of the Caribbean where she was once stationed, smell the slick heat from her black uniform as she surveyed the area to deem safe for her boss. Hear the echoing silence of when she was left alone with a terrorist prisoner who refused to talk and drove her _mad_ in this heat _mad_ with his silence _mad_ with the hospital fires and city bombings he was responsible for and feel the bones cracking under her knuckles when she meant to pummel answers from him because she had **_enough_** of mind games and word plays that unraveled the truth **_enough_** of pretending **_enough_** of wanting answers and not getting justice and before she knew it blood gloved her hands and the man was dead and two years later none of that changed.

“How’d you know all that?” she said.

She brewed herself a cup of Russian tea, closing her eyes as she let the steam wash over her face in thin wisps. Agent Romanoff was dead—Natasha the teahouse owner, Natasha the ordinary citizen, Natasha whose ledger was clean could only exist now. This Natasha only ever knew about the difference between black and red tea, about how Bruce liked chamomile and small talk, how Clint still wondered if he regretted become an agent, how Tony was Steve’s most loyal customer, how Steve would help old ladies across the road if he spotted one outside his store window, how the new regular patron Thor would rave about the store like it was the Promised Land—that was all she wanted to know.

Three sips later, it hit her. How strange, that it took her so long to realize that all of Loki’s pieces were named after battles.

(What are you fighting?)

-

There was nothing in between when it came to Loki’s apartment. Everything was either white or black. The tables were glass, which hardly counted, the couches were white, the carpet was white, the kitchenware was black, the lonely clock on the wall was black, and the piano was both. Even he blended in perfectly, with his black hair and impossibly pale skin, and his wardrobe that hardly upset the balance.

He sat at the piano; it was night and he turned none of the lights on, but knew each key’s placement like they were constellations. The piano sang softly for him underneath his fingers, so quietly that he could barely make out what it tried to say.

He breathed in, breathed out. How strange it was that he forgot he did so continuously, since the beginning of his time, and that it kept him alive. It felt so petty to him, this breathing, when his fingers could conjure better.

His head hurt. Maybe he ought to stop, to sleep. Sleep—that sounded good, sounded fine. Sleeping was like falling, except not endlessly, like death without dying—better than drowning, anyway.

He closed his eyes, trying to search for the music. It sounded empty, coarse, tinkling like coins in a beggar’s empty jar where once flowed living water.

It was only a matter of time when it all just sounded the _same_ —inadequate, amateur, _pointless._ Loki jerked his hand up, just about to slam his fist into the keys, only to drive it into his other hand. He hit himself again—again—as if he could force the art out which clogged his fingers like sludge, until both hands shook and they couldn’t hold themselves upright anymore.

Loki clenched his teeth before resting his head against the piano. Music had been his escape, his treasure to find, the few reasons he ever felt worthwhile, and now it was spitting in his face. He felt even emptier than he did before he pulled out the piano bench, as if it had sucked out his being from his fingertips and left him with a husk.

_Pointless,_ he thought. _Pointless, worthless, isn’t that what they all said before you shook your fist like a child and declared them wrong, only to be flogged and humiliated by the truth?_

No, stop. Stop these thoughts, these dark words, he was stronger than this stronger than petty despair **stronger than himself—**

_What’s the point? You play a key and no heads turn, no one smiles, no one even touches you—what’s the point?_

Loki opened his house. The black and white keys in front of him looked like prison bars.

No, he shouldn’t feel like this. He had had enough of that from Odin, enough of that from his false family who would have gladly swept him out of their house like dust if he wasn’t just a sticky shadow, enough of that from a home that turned out not to be his own—he left all that ( _ran away_ ), he conquered all that, he had no reason to backpedal into that pit.

“What is this?” he said to himself, his lips barely moving.

Was he going to be a coward in the face of the slightest failure?

Except when was he ever not? There was no concert to fail, no recording companies’ deadlines to fail, no expectations to fail, and yet he felt as if he just made another terrible mistake _again_ that trapped him and he couldn’t find his way out.

He felt cold. He wanted to sleep. Sleep. Music was false. Eating was false. Breathing was false. Sleep.

_Why is it so cold?_

He drew his feet onto the bench, resting his forehead against his knees. It was so quiet—as it always was, underneath the gleam and glimmer of piano and violin that Loki would practice hours upon hours to fill in the silence that no one else’s voice ever deigned to try. It was silent, and cold, and empty, and he was wondering how much longer it would take for his body to whittle away to the very same, if it had not yet already.

_This is so pathetic, how lucky you are that you even have a home, have a career you wanted since your youth, that you are far away from the people who scorn you, far away from everyone at all that they no longer bother to reach you—_

He tried to place his hand on the piano again, but nothing sounded right, felt right, was right, and he was half tempted to resign to the fact that he had nothing left to offer, not even in the art he was burning with passion for. There was a time he would bang the keys in frustration, strip them bare of their sheen in his rage and hurt, claw at them as he was strangled by his own emotions, but now he had long been emptied like a broken vase, and all that could press the keys was the _drip, drip, drip_ of what little was left.

He never realized that he was shaking, but this was nothing unfamiliar. He wanted to sleep so badly, sleep until there were no more hours left, sleep and let his dreams take him anywhere, anywhere but here, because in sleep everyone was alone and he wouldn’t feel so unnatural.

I don’t need anyone, he told himself, and he couldn’t even see his reflection in this darkness to remind him that his own face was his only company.

(Why does this feel like dying?)

In that case, he had been dying for about seven years.


	3. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I know nothing about the secret service and am making them function like SHIELD because I am a very dull mind. Please enjoy!

“Can I ask you something?”

Natasha sighed.

“If it is a request for more black coffee, I have the moral obligation to tell you that five cups might dehydrate you,” she said.

Tony laughed. Part of Natasha thought that maybe she ought to grace him that extra kick of caffeine because Tony looked like he would fall asleep right in front of the counter. He leaned against the counter as if it was his walking cane, and she certainly was observant enough to tell that his clothes were hanging off his frame more than usual during these past several visits. Regardless, his carefree smile and even more blasé regard for professionalism remained as steady as ever.

“Now come on, Romanoff,” said Tony. “The customer is always right.”

“The customer also nearly choked on his drink when he tried drinking boiling water a week ago,” she said.

“In my defense, the heat didn’t affect me,” said Tony. “I just—took a breath at the wrong time. Or something.”

“You have terrible timing, in that case,” said Natasha. “What book has Steve sent you off with this time?”

“ _Catcher in the Rye,_ ” said Tony. “Which makes me wonder if he questions my intelligence because anyone who went through American high school has read that book. Or at least claimed to.”

“And which of the two do you fall in?” Natasha said.

“I, for one, know where the ducks go when the lake freezes over,” said Tony. “So I picked up this old thing to pass the time until he finds me a suitable replacement.”

Natasha leaned over to read the title. “ _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?_ Plowing through the classics, aren’t you?”

“Or contemplating it,” said Tony. “Read it before?”

“Yeah.”

“Then tell me the truth: is it worth my time or should I run away from it now?”

“I’m not ashamed to tell you to run away screaming.”

Tony dropped the book as if it had inexplicably combusted. Natasha snickered.

“That bad?” said Tony.

“I personally think that the more appropriate title is ’20,000 types of fish, whale, and miscellaneous marine life that passed by my submarine window,’” said Natasha. “Though the ending was interesting until it pissed me off.”

“Play nicely, Romanoff,” said Tony. “What did the mean, big, bad book do to you?”

“Left me hanging. Left things unanswered,” Natasha said. She painstakingly draped chocolate syrup over the generous whipped cream on top of a mug of hot cocoa. “Call me brutish, but I like to finish a book knowing everything. The one character I had an inkling of care for, I don’t even know if he lived or died at the end.”

“Spoiler alert,” said Tony, picking back up the book. “Maybe I’ll go for _Naked Lunch._ That sounds like my kind of book.”

“I hope you don’t actually expect any kind of nudity in there,” Natasha said before serving the hot cocoa to a woman by the window.

“Stop with the spoiler alerts, would you? Where has everyone been lately? It’s quieter today.”

Natasha shrugged. “I’m still here.”

“I’m talking about the party, not the party pooper. You know, Bruce, Clint, Loki…”

“I don’t see how that’s a party.”

Tony stuck his tongue out at her. “They’re all gone being non-hipsters, the cogs of the Combine, Big Brother’s loyal subjects, citizens of the World State of this brave new world…”

“Because they have lives and you’re rich enough not to need one,” said Natasha.

Tony’s smile twitched. “On the dot, Ms. Romanoff.”

“Not complaining. Each cup of coffee is three bucks from you.”

Tony handed her another three dollars. She took his mug and refilled it with hot coffee.

“I really am too rich to have a life, am I?” Tony said, sitting on the counter.

“If you weren’t the only one here, I’d kick you off immediately,” said Natasha. “And what are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” said Tony. He took his mug back and blew at the hot drink. “Just trying to uh, continue the joke, you know?”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Do you have the whooping cough or something?”

“No,” said Tony. “Why?”

“You sound out of breath,” said Natasha. “Wheezy.”

“That hurts,” said Tony. “I’m not that out of shape.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “It’s the ones whose big egos hurt the easiest that are most insecure, Stark.”

“Enough of your psychoanalysis,” said Tony.

“Enough of you changing the subject,” said Natasha. “Are you sure coffee’s the best thing for you now?”

“What do you prescribe? The elixir of youth?” Tony took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. “Too hot.”

“Yeah, that’s what freshly boiled coffee tends to feel like,” said Natasha. “Do you really need that much coffee?”

“Life is short,” said Tony. “I want to stay awake for it.”

The two of them were quiet for a while as Tony silently drank his coffee and Natasha made some last-minute cleaning before the lunchtime rush that the teahouse tended to have. When Tony spoke up again, his voice was barely audible.

“Hey, Natasha?” he said.

“Yeah?” she said.

Tony hesitated, biting his chapped lips. His hands played with the half-empty coffee mug, drawing circles along the rim as if hoping to make music.

“If it was your birthday—your last birthday—what would you do?”

Natasha paused for a moment. A hundred half-answers flew through her mind, some sillier than the next, but in the midst of them all she saw how Tony slouched as he sat, and how his hands were worn, and how his breaths were so heavy and yet unsubstantial. It just occurred to her that Tony Stark, the CEO of the billion-dollar Stark Industry, genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist, was only the surface level of who he was, like a suit of armor that gleamed. Take all that away, and he was here, sitting in her rustic teahouse, drinking five cups of coffee and asking what it ought to be like to be dying.

“I’d do whatever I wanted to do,” said Natasha, “with whoever I wanted to do it with.”

“Well, that’s unsatisfyingly vague,” said Tony.

Natasha pulled up a chair and sat before him.

“Tony,” said Natasha. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” said Tony. “Can’t I get deep without people thinking it’s because something’s terribly different?”

“It’s not just the question,” said Natasha. “You don’t look well.”

“I think I’m pretty handsome,” said Tony.

“You don’t have pneumonia, do you?” said Natasha.

Tony blinked at her before taking a healthy gulp of coffee.

“Nope,” he said, smacking his lips.

“But something’s up,” said Natasha.

“I’m allergic to sticks-in-the-mud,” said Tony. “That’s why I’m constantly avoiding work.”

“But you’re sick,” said Natasha.

“Sick of work,” said Tony.

“Stark.”

Tony’s gaze fell to the ground. They sat wordlessly, with only the erratic hum of traffic outside the window and the occasional ting of the doorbells of Steve’s bookshop.

“I’ll be fine,” said Tony. His voice was hollow, with such little breath to fill it in.

Natasha pursed her lips. He lifted his eyes and offered her a blithe smile.

“Really,” said Tony. “I will.”

“And if you won’t be?” said Natasha.

“No,” said Tony. “I will be.”

Natasha opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the clomping of feet climbing up the stairs. Tony quickly slid off the counter and casually settled in his own chair as if he hadn’t just about to crack open his iron shell. Natasha took in a deep breath before returning to her aloof post behind the counter and pulling on an easy smile.

“Good morning,” she said to the new arrivals. She could see Tony from the corner of her eyes. Jules Vern was in his hands, but his eyes wandered into his thoughts, as if he saw nothing, or more than anyone else. “What can I get you today?”

-

“You know what?”

Steve was trying to balance two boxes of books in his arms. Ever since the paparazzi made a photo of Tony Stark reading _Atlas Shrugged,_ hordes of his followers have been clearing out the novel from every bookshop in Manhattan, including Tea and Tennyson. Frankly, Steve felt like he could relate to Atlas with the weight of the world in the form of roughly two hundred copies of the novel in his hands.

“I might need you to hold that thought, Clint,” Steve said.

He let the cardboard boxes fall to the ground, his arms aching. Wiping his brow, he cracked open the boxes and unloaded the books. Even before he could get them on the shelves, a gaggle of Tony’s fangirls swept them out of his hands.

“Nat should have opened up a bar above you,” said Clint. “Writers’ paradise, right? All the best ones end up drinking themselves to death or just drink.”

“Someone’s been immersing themselves in modernism, it seems,” said Steve. He looked up. “Though, I haven’t seen you around here for a long while to know.”

“I went back to work,” said Clint, checking the time on his cell phone. “And I have random days of the week off.”

“I take it your bum’s better.”

“This might just be the first time I ever heard Captain Chivalry curse.”

Steve rolled his eyes, stowing the extra copies of _Atlas Shrugged_ in the backroom. He rung up the line of whom he dubbed as Stark Stalkers armed with their copies of Ayn Rand before turning back toward Clint, who sat on top of one of the ladders, lazily perusing _Life of Pi._

“Why, you want a stiff drink here on 57th or something?” said Steve.

“Who would say no to a good drink of alcohol?” said Clint. “You could name yourselves Fitzgerald and Tennyson or something. Twenties had a lot of drinks.”

“I think Fitzgerald died of alcoholism,” said Steve.

“Then it’s like your terms of agreement before people walk in as depressed, disillusioned artists.” Clint leaped from the ladder; Steve winced when he landed with a thud. “Artists always have it rough, they say.”

“I don’t know about that,” Steve said. “Generally artists use what they can do to express themselves better.”

“But then they think that they can’t talk about it as well,” said Clint. “Bottles open best when you pull out the cork, not when you break off the bottom.”

“Now you’re feeding the stereotype of the starving artist,” said Steve.

“Our musical Poe upstairs doesn’t do us any favors,” said Clint.

“For the last time, Loki isn’t starving. I saw him eating one of Natasha’s Russian tea cakes last week.”

“Oh yay, he licked off a quarter-sized little ball of sugar sometime in the past month. Now that’s progress.”

Steve shook his head. He caught sight of Clint’s fingers and frowned.

“You get in a fight or something?” he said.

“What?” said Clint. He looked down at his hands before sighing. “Nah. I work, you know? And I busted my knuckles.”

“What are you, an undercover police?” said Steve.

“I told you,” said Clint. “I’m a stunt double for Mission Impossible films.”

“Yeah?” Steve said with a wry smile. “You like it? Tell you what—go and get me an autograph from that ghost protocol guy for me then.”

“Sure do, Cap, just give me the poster.”

“Why do you keep it a secret?” said Steve. “It isn’t like you’re part of the secret service or anything, right?”

Clint shrugged one shoulder. “I’m the kind of guy that likes to keep his work life and leisure life completely separate, or at least as much as possible.”

Steve nodded. “As long as you like it and you won’t die from it, that’s fine.”

Clint ran his finger along the edges of the copy of _Life of Pi_. He frowned slightly. Steve looked up and paused.

“Something the matter?” said Steve.

“What?” said Clint. “Oh—no. I was just thinking and stuff. That’s not a lost art yet, is it?”

“You seemed troubled,” said Steve.

“Nah, I’m not,” said Clint. “I was just wondering…”

He sat down on one of the armchairs in the corner of the store, head leaned back to face the ceiling. The book still dangled from his hand.

“I was just wondering what life would have been like if I did something differently,” said Clint.

“Life is always a lot different if you do things differently,” Steve said with a small chuckle.

“All right, wise guy,” said Clint. “I mean—specifically. If I had one choice or the other and I took the one I lost.”

Steve leaned forward on his counter. Clint pressed his lips into a thin line as if debating whether it was a better idea to remain silent.

“What are you thinking, specifically?” said Steve.

Clint let out a low whistle. He rested his elbows on his knees, absentmindedly flipping through the pages of the book.

“A lot of things, I guess,” said Clint. “So many that I can’t even retrace my steps to the very beginning; there are that many forks.” He shook his head vigorously as if to keep himself from dozing off. “Aw, who am I kidding? I’m no philosopher.”

“The world isn’t made up of only philosophers and drones,” said Steve.

“Sure feels like it, sometimes,” said Clint. “I’d be one hell of a drone.”

“You?” said Steve. “You’re one of the loudest, most outspoken people that I see walk through these doors. You’re neck to neck with Tony, anyway.”

Clint chuckled.

“I know,” said Clint. “I complain a lot. Or maybe I’m making too big of a deal about it.”

“It isn’t just nothing if it’s bothering you,” said Steve.

“Well shit, Cap, I didn’t know this was Therapy and Tennyson.”

“I just want to affirm you.”

Clint snorted but he smiled anyway. He let his head hang for a while; Steve could almost see Clint mulling it over in his head.

“It’s stupid, honestly,” said Clint. “See—when I was a kid, just a stupid little kid, I used to wish I could grow up to be a wildlife photographer. Stupid, I know. I mean, your life’s always at risk, you couldn’t have a proper family or home, and you’re stuck eating crickets and shitting in potholes. But…Cap, it was my dream. Ever since I was four and my brother Barney showed me a National Geographic magazine. Because I realized that I wanted to see the world with my own eyes and then bring it to other people who were stuck in ruts like where I was back then.”

“A rut?”

“A pit, maybe. I was in a pothole full of shit for a long time, Cap. I’m over it now, really, but I had such _fun_ times with my family and I felt like I wasn’t—really—part of this world. Barney and I—we jumped from foster home to foster home and we never landed _home_ anywhere. And really, how can you feel like you’re living in this world when you can’t hold fast to it? You’re just bouncing against it like in a pinball machine.”

Clint ran a hand over his brow. He squeezed his eyes tight.

“Aw, shit,” said Clint. “I shouldn’t be bothering you with this. In fact, I’ve only known you for some handful weeks, what am I doing?”

“Clint,” said Steve. The shop was empty during the space of time between lunch hour and the humdrum of returning to work. “If you don’t feel comfortable talking to me, that’s fine…but I feel like if it’s conflicting you in any way, you shouldn’t keep it to yourself.”

“Why, so I can be this—this teapot shrieking and setting out steam the whole time?” said Clint. He gave a crooked smile in spite of himself. “Listen, I don’t talk to anyone. No offense, but that’s usually how I roll. I only ever talk to Natasha, and that’s still hard.”

“You know her a long time?”

“A good amount of time. Don’t even know how many times I bothered her with my whining.”

“You don’t whine, Clint.”

“Oh, I can whine up a storm, trust me.”

Steve bit his lip. He remembered how his pastor once said that people heal hardest, if at all, when they kept their hurts and confessions to themselves and themselves only. Steve was no pastor though, nor was he any therapist or even close to any Natasha, but he was Steve through and through and Steve couldn’t ignore the fact that Clint wasn’t content. Not completely.

“Do you mind if I ask about your family?” said Steve.

“Yeah,” said Clint. “I kind of do.”

Steve looked down, mortified. Clint exhaled deeply, rubbing his hands together slowly.

“My parents died when I was a kid,” said Clint. “That’s why Barney and I were at foster homes all the time. And I kind of am not in speaking terms with Barney anymore. Er—that doesn’t completely have to do with our relationship, but it mostly does.”

“I’m sorry,” said Steve.

“Don’t be,” said Clint. “It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

Steve could bet ten bucks that Clint didn’t even know he was lying to himself.

“The point is,” said Clint, “I thought my life was meant to be in photography. But, you know, that’s not where I am, right now. I’m in this other job, one that gives me busted knuckles and bruised bums. And keeps me away from the real world, if I’m still a part of it at this point, for nearly my whole life. And sometimes I wonder if…if I regret it.”

Clint licked his lips before looking away as if ashamed.

“Which I shouldn’t,” said Clint. “I mean, I worked for this job, I earned it myself, and it pays me well. I wasn’t forced into it. But sometimes, if I sit back and it’s quiet long enough, my mind starts teasing the could’ves and should’ves and I think…” Clint laughed. “Actually. I don’t know what I think. But I feel bad for my past self because I can’t tell if I disappointed him.” He shrugged. “That’s the inner workings of my birdbrain, really.”

Steve nodded slowly, his voice soft.

“Thanks for sharing with me, Clint,” he said. “No really,” he added when Clint shot a look of skepticism at him. “I know it’s hard to share things with anyone.”

“Well,” said Clint. “It isn’t very easy to play Dr. Phil on anyone either so…thanks. You know, for letting me talk, I guess.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Well gee, aren’t you already on a roll?”

“What do you like photographing the most?”

Clint gave a short huff of a laugh. His eyes wandered to unidentifiable points in space, as if he could drill through the present to peep into the past.

“I liked birds,” said Clint. “Always wanted to see tropical birds, especially. How they can just fly far away and the chance of seeing one in the sky is the same as something as overrated but still as crazy cool as a shooting star. Even when they’re off the ground, flying free and saying sayonara, they’re somehow a part of this world. They’re tied down to this place not because they have to because they can get up and leave anytime they want. It’s because they’re meant to, and that’s not a bad thing.” Clint gave Steve a rather sad smile. “Isn’t it?”

It hit Steve all of a sudden how very little he knew about Clint. By giving Steve just a morsel of the truth he locked inside of himself, Clint just proved how there was so much that Steve did not know. It was unsettling, almost, realizing this, not because Steve understood that he didn’t know everything if not anything, but because he knew without a doubt that Clint’s world wasn’t a perfect world, and that what he thought were hairline cracks in the facades was actually carving themselves into deep crevices, driving what hurt and conflict Clint could possibly harbor harder and harder.

But Clint still smiled with a casual slouch in his shoulders and a book about a boy and a tiger in his hands, and Steve almost laughed at himself. Because shouldn’t it have been so obvious to him before that there was so much that people all around him hid, so much that he did not know? And that he of all people couldn’t help every single person he met even if he tried—not when he could barely help himself or Peggy?

“Yeah,” said Steve. When he smiled, it came so easily. “It is.”

-

The café was busier during the afternoon, until all the tables were taken by freelance writers, aspiring poets, and bibliophiles. Bruce ended up taking a chair next to Loki, the only table not loud or heavily occupied by laptops and cardboard cups of coffee. Loki stared him down for probably a good ten minutes until he probably concluded that he could stare all he want, Bruce was just going to remain planted where he was plowing through the halfway point of _Ulysses._

“For a doctor, you’re awfully idle,” said Loki.

“Anesthesiologist,” said Bruce, turning a page. “Flexible hours.”

“‘ _Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like an etherized patient upon a table_ …’” recited Loki in sotto voce.

“That’s the gist of it,” said Bruce. “Besides, I’m not here every day.”

“I see you more than I bargained for,” said Loki.

Bruce smirked behind Episode 12. When Tony came bounding toward Bruce’s apartment to return his laptop after the particular episode with Bruce’s imbalanced meds, he nearly bowled over Loki and thus it became awkwardly clear to all three of them that Loki and Bruce lived in the same building. Bruce should have guessed; the piano music from one floor above had always kept Bruce up until midnight on a good day.

“You don’t seem to be composing music anymore,” Bruce said, pushing up his glasses.

“You don’t seem to be crushing people’s table anymore,” said Loki, not looking up from his book.

Bruce smiled dryly.

_He really does grow on you, doesn’t he?_

“‘The Seagull?’” said Bruce.

“Hm?”

“That’s what you’re reading. Chekhov. I was in that play once.”

Loki looked up.

“Never took you as an actor,” he said.

“How observant of you,” Bruce said with a smile.

Loki narrowed his eyes.

“Well,” said Loki. “Who were you?”

“What’s his name. Medvedenko, the teacher.”

“The tragic husband. Strangely, I’m not surprised.”

“It was in high school. Not necessarily impressive while we’re only a ten minute walk away from Broadway,” said Bruce. “The guy who played Konstantin looked kind of like you, I remember. When I first saw you, I automatically thought of Treplyov.”

Loki’s bottom jaw twitched.

“Well, don’t,” said Loki. “I don’t particularly envy Treplyov.”

“Of course not,” said Bruce, watching the window. “Things didn’t go that greatly for that despairing young writer.”

He paused. Suddenly, he felt as if his mind imploded, shrinking into the size of a thimble until his too-raging thoughts were crammed and screaming. Loki might have responded to him, but Bruce couldn’t hear it, or anything. He could only stare out the window and feel his blood chill.

Betty.

She wasn’t supposed to be in New York. She wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near him. Wasn’t she in Virginia, where he last saw her?

(Last left her?)

No, that couldn’t be Betty. It was just another woman with the same eyes, same wide smile, same way her face scrunched when she laughed. Same woman, with another man’s arm around her shoulders, walking down the streets of Manhattan—and Bruce watching it all, unseen and unheard like a ghost.

Something itched in Bruce and he clenched his fists. Three years apparently sent Betty spiraling through the world, like a whirlwind, spinning colors fast and free—he, on the other hand, must have been frozen in a time capsule, body and mind, because she was happy and he was the one wishing he didn’t miss her.

“Keep up that countenance and you’d be a shoe-in for a tragic hero as well.”

Loki’s voice was the nick that crumbled Bruce’s storm of thoughts. He turned back to Loki, his tongue clammy.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just blanked out for a moment.”

Loki raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t insult my intelligence,” he said. “That is the second-most pathetic lie I’ve ever encountered.”

“A little harsh, aren’t you?” said Bruce. He shook his head. “It’s nothing. It’s…I thought I recognized someone.”

“Oh,” said Loki. He tilted his head. “Who?”

“What?”

“Who did you think you recognized?”

“Just someone I know.”

“I saw your life nearly drain from your face, Doctor. That someone you knew must have been quite the someone.”

“Things never really get past you, do they?”

Loki smiled vaguely. He excused himself for another cup of Darjeeling. Bruce could comfortably bet twenty dollars that Loki did so just to tempt Bruce with another glance to steal toward the window. Bruce wasn’t above salvaging what dignity he may have and resisting.

Betty was standing outside the patisserie across the street. Bruce couldn’t see the face of the man with her, and perhaps that was a good thing for both their sakes. Every word she said to him, for him, widened her smile. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the man, and Bruce suddenly questioned everything he ever did years ago. Those eyes were the same eyes that once loved him; he could still remember that, and just seeing her pour that for another man, even though it has already been three years, made him wonder if she could remember that at all too.

She wasn’t supposed to be here.

No. He tore away from the window, wishing that there were blinds to pull down. No, it was best this way. She wouldn’t be happy with him. She wouldn’t be safe with him. Not when his mind snapped and his emotions were unchained and tore off every muzzle he tried to use in the form of medication. Not when he had once hit her, yelled at her, and no excuse of emotional instability or medicinal mistake could ever be a good excuse to him.

( _How do you know this doesn’t mean I can’t love at all?_ )

He hid a flinch and his eyes when Loki returned with his third cup of Darjeeling. He flashed a smile at Loki, who scoffed.

“That smile is weaker than tea from an American diner,” said Loki.

“You sure don’t go easy on anyone,” said Bruce.

Loki opened his mouth to respond before he fell stock still. He sat perfectly still, eyes wide and lips slightly parted, giving him a look of childlike confusion that almost made Bruce laugh.

“Do you hear that?” said Loki.

“There’s a lot to hear in here,” said Bruce.

Loki’s eyebrow twitched. He turned sharply toward Natasha, who flashed a beautifully snarky smile at him. Only then did Bruce hear the sweeping piano music coming from Natasha’s music player, where sleepy brass jazz once occupied. Judging by Loki’s look of mixed mortification and praise, it wasn’t difficult to figure out who was the mastermind behind the notes.

“Not bad,” Bruce said. “Nice melody to read depressing plays to. I see your style well.”

Loki shot Bruce a scathing look.

“Isn’t it a musician’s honor to have their music played?” said Bruce. “Or is this place too low-grade for you?”

The glower that Loki gave him would have been enough to freeze his blood into ice if he had an inkling of fear of other people.

“Aren’t you having a concert at Carnegie Hall in November?” said Bruce.

“Now where did you hear that?” Loki said.

“Might have popped up as a Google ad while I was searching things up earlier,” said Bruce. When Loki made a movement to leave, Bruce put a hand on his wrist. Loki jerked away as if Bruce burned him, eyes wide. “Does it really make you uncomfortable that I bring it up? Because it’s a great opportunity, you know, performing there. Your first show in New York City, isn’t it?”

“Hearing it come from your mouth, or anyone else’s, is like seeing my face in the background of a stranger’s photograph,” said Loki. He picked back up the collection of Chekhov’s plays. “My agent insisted.”

“Don’t want an audience?” said Bruce, raising his eyebrows. “No flowers, no monument with your name on it?”

“Your sense of humor is astounding; please grace me with more of your wit.”

“You sound a little dry; you might want to have a glass of water or something to help that, Treplyov.”

Loki stared at him before cracking a sly smile.

“Will we play that game now?” said Loki. “Who does that make you? Dr. Hyde or Mr. Jekyll?”

“Apparently a boring archetype,” said Bruce.

“Your dignity is insufferably admirable.”

“So is your determination to come out on top.”

Loki took a long draft of his tea, eyes never leaving Bruce. When he lowered the cup, the tea left a grin on his lips.

“May this be the start of a beautiful hostility,” said Loki.

Bruce smiled grimly, and raised his cup.

-

The night was cooler than usual, as if the city were made of glass that whistled when the wind chilled it. Steve zipped up his brown jacket and hunched his shoulders to shy away from the chill. True, it was near midnight, and he wandered through the Big Apple without a second thought, but it was still the middle of May and even New York City should have shed the remnants of winter by now.

 

He thought that growing up on the island would tire him out of the frenzied lights, the smoky Broadway plays signs, the performers making the world their stage, the need to dance in order to get through, but to him it was like waking up to a dream, almost more real than normality.

_Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,_

_The muttering retreats_

_Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels_

_And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells…_

His tongue was tired and his lips were sore from hours of reciting, reading aloud poems and stories that cluttered Peggy’s shelves. It was still worth it, the aching in his throat, the parched insides of his cheeks that prayed for rain. Peggy loved it when he read to her, loved it when he attempted his British accent that sounded Scandinavian, the Scottish accent that sounded Indian, when he whispered for dramatic effect and yelled with enough passion to fill even her motionless bones. She loved it best of all, he knew, when he spoke to her at all.

And yet his days were so silent. It was silent in the bookstore with Natasha’s piano music playing through the ceiling, with Clint’s laughter and Tony’s roughened snark. It was silent at home where he was alone and Peggy hasn’t been able to speak for nearly five months now and Bucky was too tired and Steve didn’t know who else to call. It was silent out along these streets bursting with so much life that it was tiring, almost making him lifeless.

_I have measured out my life with coffee spoons_

_I know the voices dying with a dying fall_

_Beneath the music from a farther room._

_So how would I presume…?_

“Excuse me—excuse me?”

Steve turned around, bemused as a large hand fell on his shoulder. Before him was Thor’s beaming face, blond hair tied in a small ponytail at the base of his head, dressed to the nines like a silver screen gentleman.

“I knew it was you,” said Thor with breathless triumph.

“Hello, Thor,” Steve said with a smile. “What are you doing out so late?”

“Some things in the office needed to be ironed out,” said Thor. He walked alongside Steve down the Big Apple.

“At this hour?”

“Tomorrow has its own troubles to deal with. I really haven’t enough time in the world to say otherwise. What about you?”

“Is it ever a surprise to see someone awake in the city that never sleeps?” said Steve.

“Fair point,” said Thor. “May I treat you to coffee or anything?”

“Treat me?”

“I still never thanked you for your kindness for staying well over an hour for me.”

“Oh,” Steve said, abashed. “Oh, no, no, no, you really don’t have to. I told you, it’s really all right.”

“I insist,” said Thor. “My fiancée—Jane is her name—she loved the book. And it wouldn’t have been so without you.”

For a towering man in his late twenties and bulging muscles that Steve didn’t even know existed in the human body, Thor had an impressive begging puppy face.

“I’ll gladly join you for a cup of coffee, but I’ll treat myself,” said Steve. “Please—I really insist. The fact that you genuinely appreciated it is enough repayment.”

“You really are an admirable character, Rogers,” said Thor.

They found a small coffee shop further away from the Big Apple, where the lights were less impressive and the streets quieter. The musty smell of coffee welcomed down among the late-night crowd conversing in their hushed tones that always followed night. Thor ordered an espresso and tried to wheedle the waitress into letting him pay for Steve’s latte macchiato but to no avail. Steve couldn’t help but laugh at his attempts.

“You are undoubtedly the most generous businessman I’ve ever met,” said Steve.

“Now, we aren’t all as bad as movies portray us,” said Thor.

“I know,” said Steve. “But mind you, I’ve been living near Wall Street nearly all my life. Not close enough to benefit from the spoils, perhaps but enough to catch them in their shenanigans. How was your anniversary dinner?”

“Very lovely,” said Thor. “I should bring Jane to your store one day. She loves to read; do you have a science fiction section?”

“Of course,” said Steve. “A little limited, but we’ve got the more known ones.”

“Jane’s a scientist,” Thor said with unmistakable pride. “Perhaps she’d enjoy those as well. Would you like something to eat as we;?”

“If I did, you’re not paying for it.”

Steve felt his stomach rumble and he sucked in his breath as if that could mask the sound. He had dinner with Sharon and Peggy again, as he almost always did, but Peggy couldn’t swallow down solids anymore and Steve shamefully could not pretend to himself that a bowl of soup kept him satisfied for very long.

“How have you been?” said Thor.

“Fine,” said Steve. It was so instinctive of him to answer that way that he had nearly forgotten that it was a lie.

“You seem tired,” said Thor.

“Well, it is midnight, and my macchiato’s decaf.”

“Perhaps it was unwise of me to keep you late,” Thor said. Steve could practically feel the waves of guilt sloshing between them.

“No, it’s fine,” said Steve. “I’ve just been going through life, you know? This helps me slow down.”

“Everything all right?” said Thor.

Steve almost said yes, just like all the other people he cared for would say, even though he knew they were lying and knew they were crumbling before his eyes and they thought that a simple ‘yes’ would hide all of that from him. That one second of hesitation was apparently all that Thor needed his face softened.

“Is there anything I can do?” said Thor.

“I’m fine, really,” said Steve. “I just—sorry, I thought I misheard you. I thought you said ‘everything tonight’ and that didn’t make sense to me so I was thinking.”

Thor gave Steve a sad smile.

“You know,” said Thor. “My little brother is the best liar in the world. Growing up with him has made me rather keen on who is lying and who is not.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. Now it was his turn to send the waves of guilt crashing.

“It’s kind of personal,” said Steve. “And technically not mine to tell.”

Thor pursed his lips, stirring his espresso with a thin Popsicle stick.

“Well,” said Thor, “something about it must be yours if it’s affecting you in the first place.”

“I really am all right,” said Steve. Steve wasn’t the one to ask for help—he was the one to give help, to stand on his own feet so he could support others, to be the listening ear when people needed to be heard. How can he be all those if he admitted he was just so very _tired_?

“I do not mean to pry,” said Thor, eyes downcast.

“It’s fine,” said Steve. “You care for others; don’t apologize for that.”

“I worried,” said Thor. “I’ve seen my share of people bottling everything in until they were past the point of no return. It isn’t…it isn’t nice.”

“Don’t worry about me,” said Steve. _I’m stronger than that_ , he almost added.

“But,” said Thor, “If you do have any need to talk with someone…even if that person isn’t me, I really hope you will speak with someone. I’d understand if it wasn’t me, I mean.” He laughed self-consciously “My own little brother never wanted to be honest with me.”

A flicker of hurt past Thor’s face but he distracted himself with a sip of the espresso. Steve pressed his lips into a thin line; if Thor was perceptive of lies, then Steve was perceptive of pain.

“What’s your brother like?” said Steve. “If I may ask?”

Thor licked his lips. “If only I knew,” he said.

They sat quietly for a moment. The milk foam in Steve’s cup deflated.

“He was always much quieter than I,” said Thor. “Sly. Clever, mischievous…but he has such a sensitive heart. And he’s such a wonderful musician.”

“Were you two close?” said Steve.

“We once were,” said Thor. “As we grew, we grew apart. Then conflicts occurred and…and now I suppose we no longer are on talking terms.”

Thor winced as if just the reminder physically hurt him.

“He has concerts all over the place, you know,” said Thor. “He performed in London, or Barcelona—even Reykjavik. I always told myself I would attend one. Listen to the music, listen to _him, see_ him. But I never could bring myself to do it. I’m afraid that I’ll see him with my own eyes after all this time and—”

Thor smiled in spite of himself and shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” said Thor. “I mean to ask you if you’re all right and I end up being the one complaining.”

“You aren’t complaining. It’s absolutely okay,” said Steve. If he had a younger sibling who never spoke to him, he wouldn’t know he could go through each day without hurting. “That must be really hard for the both of you.”

“I don’t even know his address,” said Thor.

Steve absentmindedly stirred his cold coffee. Thor picked at his strawberry strudel. Someone laughed with profound determination in the corner, snorts and all.

“What kind of music does he make?” Steve said.

“I have iTunes on my phone,” said Thor. “Would you like to listen?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Steve.

Thor handed Steve an ear bud of his headphones. Steve placed it in his ears and Thor played one of the pieces. Soft, silky piano music flowed into Steve’s mind and sent a shudder in his stomach—the taste of déjà vu, like he had heard this piece in a dream, or a long forgotten memory.

“I feel like I heard this before,” said Steve.

“He’s rather well known in Iceland,” said Thor.

“What did you say your brother’s name was?”

“Loki,” said Thor. “Loki Odinson.”

Steve paused. Like magnets, the name Loki and this music drew together perfectly. He stared at Thor, trying to find some telltale shape of the eye or chin or nose that would betray a clue of heredity, but everything about Thor was just Thor—unfamiliar, unseen elsewhere.

“Is Loki a common name?” said Steve.

Thor frowned.

“I don’t believe so,” said Thor. “Our parents were fond of odd names for their children.”

“It’s just—” Steve bit back his words. What if the coincidence was merely that—coincidence? If he raised Thor’s hopes only for something to crush them, Steve didn’t think he could handle Thor at his most disappointed if he couldn’t even resist the puppy eyes. “I met a Loki before, and he’s a pianist as well. ‘Cept he has a different surname and honestly, he looks nothing like you.”

Thor’s face froze. For a moment Steve thought he had insulted him.

“Loki—my brother…” Thor bit his lip. “He’s adopted. He wouldn’t look like me.”

And the only word that cycled through Steve’s mind for a good minute was, _Jeepers._

“Can I ask—?” Steve tugged open his messenger bag he carried. He pulled out his sketch pad, swiping past the many dusty pages of blurred sketches. “I know I’m not a good artist at all, but does your brother happen to look anything like this?”

He found the sketch he made an odd number of weeks ago of Loki writing music at the café corner. He pushed the sketchbook across the table toward Thor. Thor frowned, bending low to view the drawing. His gold hair shielded his face so that Steve could not see his expression, but he fell so still that Steve felt coldness settle in his stomach.

“What is this?” Thor said. His voice was quiet.

“There’s a guy,” Steve said, his palms suddenly sweating. “He comes over to my bookshop and Natasha’s teahouse frequently to write music. And I—I sketch for fun, and that day I was drawing him, and…”

Thor looked up at Steve with eyes so wide and brimming with confusion, hope, _want_ that Steve almost felt like he had just spoke Thor’s dreams to come true.

“Is he—?”Thor swallowed. His voice shook. “Is he—I mean, is he truly named Loki? Are you most certain?”

“Yes,” said Steve. “But he goes by Loki Laufeyson. I don’t know if…”

Thor flinched, but the familiarity did not fade from him. He pressed a hand to his lips as if trying to catch the trembling, stuttered words that fell from his lips.

“And you—does he come often?” said Thor. “And you say he is a pianist? Do you know if he said where he was from? If he—I mean, will I see him if I go to your store?”

“I don’t know when he comes,” Steve said. He suddenly broke into sweat at the idea that maybe they were speaking of completely different Lokis and one day Thor was going to barrel into his store with even more vigor than usual only to realize that the little brother he missed was not the one that Steve had found. Disappointment was an emotion Steve never liked to see in others. “He comes often, I guess. But I don’t—I can’t be certain that he’s the same person you’re thinking of, Thor—”

“Who else can it be?” Thor said. He held the sketchbook in both hands, his eyes not leaving the page. “And you give yourself little credit, Rogers—your skills are remarkable.”

“I’m terrible,” said Steve, and the panic settled again. What if his terrible art skills _did_ make Loki Laufeyson look like Loki Odinson when in fact they looked completely dissimilar and all of Steve’s hand slips led up to this. “Don’t get your hopes up, Thor, I don’t know if—”

But Thor was searching through his cell phone frantically. He frowned, almost winced as if in pain.

“I have little recent pictures of him with me,” he said. “But I… there’s a video on YouTube of one of his concerts in Australia. Here—”

Steve leaned forward to watch the tiny smartphone screen. He swore he felt his heart jump into his throat and choke him. There was no doubt about it—that was the Loki he knew up on stage at the piano, fingers flowing over the keys like water. His face was strangely pensive, so unlike the gaunt tiredness and unreadable conflict that Steve always saw behind a mug of Darjeeling.

What surprised Steve the most was that Loki was singing as well.

“He can sing?” said Steve. “I only just learned that he talks.”

“Then it’s him?” said Thor, setting the phone down. His wide eyes reminded Steve of a child waiting for a miracle. “It’s really him—the man on your paper?”

“I—I guess so,” Steve said, dazed.

Thor took in deep breaths, slumping against his chair as if he ran a marathon. He ran his hand through his hair, a shuddering smile stretching on his face. He gave a nervous laughter as if he couldn’t breathe.

“He’s here,” Thor said in hushed awe. “My kid brother has been here this entire time and I never knew.”

“Do you want to see him?” said Steve. He remembered Bruce mentioning that he lived in the same building as Loki. “Maybe we could find a way to bring you to him.”

Slowly, but surely, Thor’s smile slid off his face and he lowered his hands. He bit his bottom lip.

“I—” Thor swallowed hard. “I—maybe I should—I don’t know.” Thor closed his eyes, cracking a very grim smile. “What am I saying? Of course I want to see him. I want to see him, want to speak with him, but—no, I know he won’t want to see him. He wouldn’t want to speak to me again.”

Thor swallowed again and looked down, and Steve swore he could see Thor breaking apart before him again.

“You don’t know that,” said Steve. “It’s been four years and—”

“Trust me,” Thor said, and all that breathy giddiness that infected his voice flattened into a pained sigh. “I know he will not want to see me. I…was not the best brother to him.” He lifted his blue eyes, bluer now with memory. “He did not run away from home for no reason.”

“But,” said Steve, “what will you do then?”

“I don’t know,” said Thor. “I don’t want to keep my distance now that I know I could be easily living across the street from him. But—I don’t know how to set things right. I feel as if anything I try to do will only make things worse. I was never good with making things better—only destroying things.”

“Is anything ever irreparable?” said Steve. “Listen—even if you did talk to Loki, it’s true: things aren’t going to be the same immediately, but…but surely it can get better.”

Thor put a hand to his forehead, his shocked but relieved smile shyly returning.

“Is he well?” said Thor. “Is he—is he happy? Healthy?”

“I don’t…really know,” said Steve. “I don’t walk to him as much as everyone else…they all get to hang out upstairs and I’m sort of needed at the counter, you know? But he—well, he’s alive.”

“I should see him,” said Thor. “No—no, he wouldn’t want to see me at all. But I can’t just let him grow apart from me like this. But what can I say? What if I drive him away? What if I—?”

“It’ll be fine, Thor,” said Steve. “ _You’ll_ be fine. Listen, how about you give him a call or something first, so you don’t scare the wits out of him if you pop out of nowhere? Start off easy—he’s got to be in the phonebook somewhere, right?”

“Phone—right, you’re right,” said Thor. He was crumpling his napkin in one hand over and over again. “I’ll find him—I’ll call him and then I’ll talk to him finally, I’ll—then I’ll take him to dinner, or lunch, or anything and we can catch up and—”

Thor looked so blessed that Steve nearly felt himself choke up, despite only knowing either of the brothers for several glances. Thor reached over to shake Steve’s hand so fervently that Steve thought his elbow would bend the wrong way.

“Thank you, Rogers,” said Thor. “Bless you.”

-

“You remember Agent Hill?”

Clint always had the impression of being a somewhat dense man. He had, in someone else’s words and not his own, the emotional capacity of a teacup and the emotional intelligence of a jellyfish. Though in his defense, why should he put two and two together about someone’s mood and react thusly if they used their snappish tones or morose sigh to say, “I’m fine”?

But when it came to Natasha, Clint was a scholar. He knew the fine lines on her forehead when she creased her brow, knew the tightening of skin around her knuckles when she clenched her hands into fists in her pockets. And none of that went amiss when he mentioned the name and watched her pause for just a moment when she was at the stove cooking beef Stroganoff for the both of them.

“Yes,” said Natasha. Her back turned toward him, she sautéed the beef with misplaced determination. “What about her?”

Clint shifted in his seat in Natasha’s kitchen.

“She got transferred to Somalia,” said Clint. “She’s flying there day after tomorrow.”

“Are you allowed to tell me this?” said Natasha. “Technically I’m not in your inner circle anymore.”

Clint picked at his fingernails.

“I know I’m not,” said Clint. “I just kind of want to say it to someone.”

Natasha poured bowtie noodles into a pot of boiling water. Clint never would have guessed that she was as adept with tea and cooking as she was with guns back in the day.

“Are you worried for her?” said Natasha. “Somalia’s considered one of the most dangerous places on Earth.”

“You can say that, I guess,” said Clint. “Then you can say that about any country. People are people wherever, and they make their decisions wherever.”

“Then what’s bothering you?” said Natasha.

“I’m not bothered,” said Clint.

“Yes, you are,” said Natasha. She turned sharply to him. “You wouldn’t mention it out of the blue. Not to me.”

Clint smiled in spite of himself. It wasn’t rightly fair, in his opinion, how much more easily Natasha understood him than vice versa. He had always thought he knew her because he was her friend, but he always had the itching feeling that she knew him in the same way she knew everyone else—cold observation, eyes pinned on him like needles pinning his wriggling form on a wall.

Someone else’s words, not his.

“I don’t know,” said Clint. “I just thought it was something cool. I mean, she’s off to Somalia, Fury’s been in every single country, you went to Budapest and Sao Paulo—”

“You were in Budapest too,” said Natasha.

“You and I remember Budapest very differently,” said Clint. While she had been running through unnamed Hungarian streets, speaking a language he never heard and seeing things he never knew, Clint had been sitting on a plane some hundred meters above the clouds with a headset and satellite guiding her, hungry to walk on a real road and not a tiny jet wracked with turbulence.

“Fury just never lets me anywhere outside of the United States,” said Clint. “Maybe I’m not qualified enough or something.”

“Of course you’re qualified,” said Natasha. She had three stove heads working at the same time, one sautéing the beef, the other boiling pasta, and the last whipping up a pale sauce for the noodles. Clint could hardly manage a piece of toast without something catching smoke. “But these aren’t vacation spots, you know that.”

“I know that,” said Clint. “It’s just that…”

He laughed because he was so _stupid._ Maybe he really was not qualified or skilled or _worth_ enough to the division that they locked him up in the repetition of where he was now while others saw the world with their own eyes because they could bring something to the table. He was the one that got himself shot in the ass when chasing a rogue—who was he to deny it?

“I’m itching,” said Clint. “I’m itching and I just wish I could march up to Fury and say, come on, man. You know I’ve got it. I won’t fail you. I know I don’t have the experience or the test scores or whatever the hell the council wants from me but I’ve got _me_ and I can do it, you know?”

“I know, Clint,” said Natasha. She drained the pasta without burning her face with the spewing steam, which Clint never mastered. “I believe in you. But you’re probably more needed here.”

Clint suddenly recalled the image in ‘Forrest Gump,’ where two children knelt in a cornfield with their eyes closed and hands clasped, praying, ‘ _Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far, far away. Dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far, far away…”_

“How do you want your sauce?” said Natasha. “Saltier? Creamier?”

“Whatever,” said Clint. “Seriously, how did you have the time and the talent to learn all this stuff?”

Natasha laughed. “You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m serious,” said Clint. “Not only can you play Dr. Phil on me, but you can cook, you can run a business, you were one of the best agents under Fury—”

“Look who’s talking, Robert Capa reincarnated,” said Natasha.

“I’m not that good,” Clint said.

“You shoot photographs like a pro,” said Natasha. She divided the dinner to two bowls, pouring thick sauce over the pasta and beef. “You’re gifted.”

“Stop it, you’re fattening my ego,” said Clint. “Along with my stomach,” he added when Natasha slid a bowl of her creamy noodles in front of him.

“That’s because you let it deflate so easily,” said Natasha. “Humility’s one thing. Self-deprecation is another.”

“I’m not self-deprecating,” said Clint. “I’m only—”

(wishing that I wasn’t throwing away a childhood dream, that I was good enough at something that I know I’m not screwing up, that I could be like you who did things right with your job and your skills, who took the risk to do what you wanted, who could take the world in your silver platter because you _can_ and I’m letting myself pass by until I’ll end up regretting my entire life on my deathbed)

_I grow old…I grow old…_

_I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled…_

“I’m only whiney,” said Clint.

Natasha raised her eyebrows. He shrugged and lifted a fork.

“It’s all just bitter envy, Nat,” said Clint. “I curl up in a corner in the darkness of my room plotting to steal your skills to whip up a mean beef Stroganoff.”

Natasha laughed. Clint smiled behind his fork and hastily brought up the topic of something or another he could easily forget.

As much as it was embarrassing to say, it wasn’t half false.

-

There were books strewn all over the floor of Loki’s living room. Dostoevsky, Twain, Murakami—his old collection of reads now thrown across the room like garbage. Loki stepped gingerly around them like they were landmines. It was a dance, almost—walking on his own eggshells.

But at least his bookshelf was cleared, leaving dusty corners that he could fill up with whatever it was he wanted (the first option in his head was ‘nothing’). As for the books, he may as well toss them out onto the streets for a hipster to manipulate into sickeningly sentimental art, or donate them to Steve if he had some sort of used books section. He hadn’t read his once-favorites in years, and he could hardly imagine anything to change his mind now.

Somewhere on the other side of the apartment door, he heard the elevator chime and a giggling couple down the hallway. These walls were evidently not as thick as he had wanted. One time he heard what he could have sworn was a cult of about twenty chanting on the floor below. Another time what must have been a Gregory Peck marathon down the hallway. He tried not to think of what he was almost certain was a ball upstairs, party of two, and their slow dancing making the ceiling pulse over his head. _One-step-step, two-step-step, three-step-step—_

(Sometimes, he would play a waltz on the piano and imagine himself in the same room as them as they danced to his music, and he played to their dance)

_I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each._

_I do not think that they will sing to me…_

Before he could shovel his old books into a pile to be taken away, his phone rang.

He paused. The apartment walls were certainly much thinner than previously advertised, if he could hear the neighbor’s from here. He hastily continued shoving his books against the wall, willing the next-door neighbor to hurry up and answer the damn phone before it drove him mad.

It took about four more rings for Loki to realize that it really was his own phone ringing. His heart jumped. He could think of no one—no one but a telemarketer or a computerized voice—that would try to reach him, and he had long put his name under the list of those who unsubscribed from such solicitors (as well as quietly threaten any unfortunate telemarketer that if they dare interrupt his time with their soulless commercials again he was going to track down their location and make them long for something as sweet as pain).

He picked up the phone from the receiver. The number was unrecognizable. Loki had the better mind to not answer the phone and continue with his silent bibliocide, but the sound of his own phone ringing and the promise of someone’s voice on the other end was a promise. One that he had thought was long lost.

He pressed the button to answer the call, clenched his teeth, and held it up to his ear.

“Laufeyson speaking, how may I help you?” he said.

If anything, he hoped he did not sound aghast.

(He hoped he did not sound hopeful)

“Loki?”

Loki felt his entire body grow cold.

He couldn’t breathe.

“Loki, is that you?”

This was a nightmare. A foul trick. Some higher being was so very disappointed in him and was passing judgment upon him. This _couldn’t be real._

“Who is this?” Loki said, because there had to be some justice in the world that he had _misheard_ , or mistaken, or any other reason at all that did not point to the very obvious and very _impossible_ truth.

“Loki, it’s me,” said the voice on the other end. “It’s Thor. My goodness, I found you, I finally—”

Loki heard no more. He slammed the phone back into the receiver. Silence filled his apartment again. Silence, and the ramming of his heart.

Thor.

Before he could draw another breath, the phone rang again. Same unsaved number. Same Thor.

Loki stared. He didn’t know what else to do.

_Thor._

Six rings later, the answering machine picked up. Four years and however many or few miles between them did nothing to make Loki forget the sound of Thor’s voice blaring beneath the crackling audio. Every syllable Thor uttered made Loki feel another cup of blood drain from his head.

“Loki,” said Thor’s voice. “Loki, please pick up. I—an acquaintance of mine helped me find you here. In New York City. Loki, I’m here too. I’ve been living here for two years.”

Loki stumbled, falling back against the wall. This change inside of him—burning, ashes, cold ice, anger, fear, pain, disgust—made his stomach churn until he could barely stand.

“I want to speak with you,” said Thor. “It’s been so long. It’s been _years,_ Loki. Please—my number is 212-394-4632. Have you got that? Please—call me, send me a text message, anything. I—I want to hear from you.”

Loki swallowed. Again. Again. His mouth was filled with bitter bile and he shook.

“I see,” Loki whispered.

He never heard Thor say goodbye. He barely made it in time to the bathroom before he retched. 


	4. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“I want to cancel the November concert.”

The voice on the other end of the phone said nothing. For all Loki knew, his agent had set the phone down to pour himself a healthy washbasin of cognac instead of listen.

That was, until he heard the stuttering laughter that gruffly reminded Loki of a politician trying to laugh off sound accusations.

“Now, Laufeyson,” said Justin Hammer. “You realize—I mean, I don’t think you know what it sounds like you’re requesting.”

“I want to move out of New York City,” said Loki.

Justin chorused his laughter once more. “This is ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.”

“No,” said Loki. “You don’t understand.”

Loki was pacing in his living room, the books still scattered along the wall and his appearance a mess. Anyone looking upon him—if they dared—would have thought him a disheveled drunkard going through a breakup. Except Loki was neither drunk nor had he ever been in a successful relationship, and if anything he wanted to have a thousand break-ups with everything New York City more than anything else.

“No, I think I do,” said Justin. “Listen, Laufeyson, I deal with about thirty other divas that change their minds at the drop of a dime, and now you’re going to join their ranks—”

“That is not what I’m trying to do,” said Loki. “I just have—I have a _difficulty_ I would prefer to be rid of.”

“You’re not having another one of your _episodes,_ are you, Laufeyson?”

Loki clenched his teeth so hard he thought he would break his jaw.

“No,” said Loki. “I don’t have episodes, Hammer.”

“Whatever you say,” said Justin. “Listen. I don’t know if you Norwegians know it, but Carnegie Hall is a _big deal_ , and if you drop it now, you’re pretty much throwing everything away.”

“I know what the Carnegie Hall is,” Loki said. His breathing became dangerously strained. “I don’t think I care very much.”

“What are you planning on doing then, huh?”

“There will be other concerts.”

“You are in _New York City_.”

 “I’ve been in New York City for years, it’s time for change.”

“Correction—you’ve got an apartment under your name in New York City for years,” said Justin. “I hope you didn’t forget how I had to practically chase you down by phone all around the world when you ran off in pursuit of your version of Eat, Pray, Love or something like that—”

“ _I’m not_ _running away!”_

His voice echoed in the empty apartment. The dancers upstairs paused in their steps. A conversation across the hall stopped abruptly. Loki swallowed hard and lowered himself to the floor, that creeping feeling of illness claiming his senses again.

“I’m not running away,” said Loki.

It wasn’t until Justin spoke again did Loki remember he was still on the phone.

“Listen,” said Justin. “You just…take a nap, okay? You sound like you haven’t slept in days. Take a nap. Sleep on it. Take a sleeping pill. I don’t know.”

Loki swallowed down the sensation of needing to throw up.

“So, concert’s still on at Carnegie Hall,” Justin plowed on. “You’ll keep your head screwed on right and you’re going to rank top of the list. You’ll be like the new male Regina Spektor or something.”

Loki closed his eyes. He wondered why he never suspected that Thor would find him sooner if someone as zealous as Justin Hammer was his agent.

“Justin—”

“That’s enough about that talk now,” said Justin. “Let’s talk about more important things. You’re going to have a meeting with the recording company two Wednesdays now, you hear? Big name people are going to be there.”

“Listen—”

“And for goodness’ sake, don’t deadpan snark at interested parties again, will you?”

“Maybe if they were wise enough to catch on it wouldn’t be as fun.”

“There you go again. All right, gotta run. My cellist Coulson’s calling in. Ciao.”

The line went dead. Loki let his head fall back against the wall. The polka dancing and the murmured sweet nothings picked up again, almost hesitantly as if they thought they interrupted something.

This was ridiculous. Justin was right; like hell Loki was going to let his fake brother chase him out of his own domain. He was going to drive his stake to the ground and claim this spit of land and _hell hell hell Thor was here Thor was_ here _he needed to get away go away run away before—_

Loki swallowed hard. Acquaintance. Thor said an acquaintance led him to Loki. Who did Thor know that knew Loki as well? Loki tried running down the list of names he knew only to stop at about five.

There was no way that Thor would ever know Steve or Natasha; he doubted Thor could even read much less go into a bookstore. Besides, Thor had a tendency to break cups; if he came anywhere near Natasha’s domain she wouldn’t have kept quiet about it.

Bruce was friendly with anyone who walked past him, but he also wasn’t much of a gossip and would keep quiet about anyone. Hippocratic Oath or something like that.

Loki barely knew Clint but he doubted Clint would ever have a kind word to say about Loki anyway. He wasn’t even sure if Clint knew his real name; he heard himself be addressed as ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ or ‘Mr. Darcy on the piano’ sometimes. At one point, ‘Lucky Laughingson.’

It had to be Tony. Head of Stark Industries, probably had business dealings with Asgard Incorporated. And Loki could tell just by looking at Tony that he was the kind of man who made poor choices when drunk.

Dammit, Tony.

Loki took a book from the ground and hurled it against the couch. It bounced pathetically off the sofa and pages-first onto the floor, paper splayed pathetically. He picked up another one— _To Kill a Mockingbird_ , and tried to read it. Turned to the middle of the book, page one hundred and thirty-three, before two sentences in it hit him all over again.

Thor was here, Thor knew where he was, _he was found._

He threw the book as far away from him as possible as if it was a snake. He put his face in his hands, trying to will away that grisly sensation in his chest. It was of indignation, surely—righteous anger. Indignation that Thor found him, that Thor wouldn’t leave him alone.  It was not fear, not fear, not fear, not guilt, not guilt, not shame, not fear, not guilt, _not guilt not guilt not guilt not guilt not_

God _dammit,_ Tony.

-

“I see you’ve given up on _Ulysses,_ ” Natasha said to Bruce.

Bruce looked up from his copy of _A Beautiful Mind_ sheepishly.

“More like a hiatus,” he said. “I’ve seen phonebooks thinner than that novel.”

“I’ve seen encyclopedias smaller than that book,” said Natasha. “Then again, we live in the Wikipedia age. Did Steve recommend that new to you?”

“He’s a bit busy,” said Bruce. “He and his friend—Bucky’s his name, right?—have a load of new shipments coming in. Apparently Tony’s been caught reading _Fifty Shades of Grey_ and the paparazzi got a hold of him.”

“Him? _Fifty Shades_?” said Natasha. “Ms. Potts better keep a leash on that fellow.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what that book recommends,” Bruce said grimly. “I’m almost one hundred percent positive he’s letting himself get caught with books just to mess with everyone. I overheard him telling Steve to buckle up.”

“What for?”

“Because he had plans of traipsing around Central Park with the Twilight series next week.”

Natasha sighed. “At least it’s still business for Steve.” She frowned. “Wait, you said Bucky?”

“Yeah, Steve’s best friend,” said Bruce.

Natasha cursed under her breath. “He’s not coming up here anytime, is he?”

“I mean, he has full rights to it,” said Bruce. “What’s wrong?”

“He was an old flame,” Natasha said with a grimace. “Things didn’t end prettily.”

Bruce gave a low whistle. When there were heavy footsteps racing up the stairs, Natasha immediately turned her back. Bruce did not miss how her hand automatically reached toward the kettle of boiling water as if to prepare for an attack.

Instead of Bucky, a blond, burly man in a sharp suit climbed up the stairs. He looked around desperately like a lost dog, running a large hand through his hair as if he had no idea how he ended up in Tea and Tennyson. Bruce glanced back at Natasha, who was determinedly facing the wall.

“You’re safe,” he said.

Natasha sighed and turned around again.

“Who’s the Lost Boy?” she said as the man prowled through the café, ducking his head as if he was looking for something in the bookshelves.

“I don’t know, that’s your customer service job to deal with,” said Bruce.

Natasha rolled her eyes before calling out to the man.

“Need any help, sir?”

He straightened immediately, reaching his formidable full height. He blinked as if second-guessing whether Natasha was talking to him or the little girl completely at ease with an American Girl book behind him.

“No, I’m fine,” he said. “I was only looking for someone.”

“Don’t think that someone’s going to be in the bookshelf,” Bruce said under his breath.

“Has a Loki O—Laufeyson come here recently?” he said.

Natasha raised her eyebrows. Bruce frowned, slowly turning to look at the stranger. There was a pleading look in his eyes, like a child who lost his puppy in the neighborhood.

“Not recently,” Natasha said. Her gaze sharpened; Bruce thought he could see her mind whirring with action as she mentally assessed the man before them. “Is that who you’re looking for, then?”

“Yes,” he said. “Steve Rogers—the man downstairs, he said that Loki comes here often.”

“Have you got his cell phone number?” said Natasha.

“Not even that,” Thor said. His face lit up all of a sudden. “Have any of you got it?”

Bruce and Natasha exchanged glances. Bruce knew where Loki lived, since it was a floor away, and he didn’t doubt that Natasha knew his cell number whether Loki gave it to her willingly or not, but in all his eager desperation the man could easily be a crazed stalker.

“Nope,” said Natasha. “Sorry.”

The man’s shoulders slumped considerably. Bruce couldn’t help but feel sorry for the would-be stalker.

“What’s your name?” said Bruce.

“Thor,” he said. “Thor Odinson.”

The name rang a bell—either that or it was the brass chime on Steve’s door below.

“Would you mind if I asked a great favor of you?” said Thor. “I don’t know when Loki comes around but—would you give me a call when he does? Here, my cell phone number—”

He handed to Natasha a crisp business card with Asgard Incorporated’s insignia welded into the paper. Natasha held it gingerly, as if she mistook it for a Howler.

“Would you do that for me?” said Thor. “Please?”

Natasha kept an admirably straight face as she read the contents of the card. Bruce had to turn his head to keep himself from bursting into laughter.

“I’ll hold onto this,” she said, tucking it into the pocket of her jeans.

Thor’s face broke into a smile so wide it was almost comical.

“Thank you so much,” he said. “I am in your debt.”

Before Natasha could say anything else, or before Thor could realize that she never even said yes, he practically skipped down the stairs and out of sight. Bruce couldn’t hold himself back anymore and snorted into his coffee mug.

“What do you think?” he said. “Stalker?”

“Definitely,” said Natasha.

“For a stalker, he looks well off,” said Bruce.

Natasha took out Thor’s business card for a second glance.

“Vice chairman for Asgard Incorporated,” she read out loud. “I’d say he’s pretty damn well off. What would he stalk Loki for?”

“Even millionaires like musicians,” said Bruce. “So are you going to do it?”

“What, call him?” said Natasha. Bruce nodded. “Hell no. Can’t trust anyone in this city.”

Bruce smiled wryly. “Does it scare you, ever?”

“What does?”

“We’ve got an apparently renowned musician, a genius billionaire playboy, a super-soldier who lives up to a legend considering all the Medals of Honors Steve earned, a master assassin according to the last time I asked Clint what he does, and me—who has breathtaking anger management, and you managed to make all of us regular patrons.”

“What can I say?” said Natasha. “My tea brings all the boys to my yard.”

“No kidding,” said Bruce. “Where has Clint been lately, anyway? I haven’t seen him around here for a couple of weeks.”

“Working,” said Natasha.

“So he is a master assassin?” said Bruce.

Natasha smirked. “Him? A master assassin? He’d sass the victim before putting a finger on him.”

“Sassination,” said Bruce.

Natasha nearly spilled her hot water kettle.

“Oh God, I can picture it,” said Natasha, snorting with laughter. “He’d verbally burn his targets.”

“Speaking of burning,” said Bruce. “What happened between you and this Bucky guy?”

The look that Natasha gave him might have been enough for him to nearly wet his pants, but it was worth it.

-

“So I hear that Rock of Ages is making a debut in the Big Apple.”

Loki’s eyebrow twitched. Tony cackled in the inside at Loki’s look of ire. It was like setting a grouchy pug loose and watching it flail with its little legs. Perfect for YouTube popularity.

“You are the last person I want to talk to about that,” said Loki.

“Too bad for you,” said Tony. “I already pre-purchased tickets. Pepper has been saying how we never go on artsy dates, anyway. Double seats, got my own box. This better be fantastic.”

If it weren’t for that mug of near-boiling tea in Loki’s hand that could easily tip right over Tony’s head, Tony would have found Loki to be currently hilarious. His eyebrow was having some sort of epileptic fit on his forehead and Tony be damned if this wasn’t the first time he saw any color in Loki’s face. It certainly made Tony’s day after the doctor’s appointment earlier.

“I hope you know I am very tempted to throw you out the window right now,” said Loki.

“For what?” said Tony. “Are you that peevish about me attending your concert? Because I’ll have you know I have been vying to bring in celebrities for some Stark employees-only concert ever since Google pulled that and I was thinking about pulling you in since, you know, you’re kind of already here.”

“I’m not talking about that, though I would decline faster than I can gouge your eyes out, which frankly, is very quick,” said Loki. “I’m talking about you running your mouth.”

Tony blinked. Loki gave an exasperated sigh.

“You went and blabbed to Thor about me being in New York, didn’t you?” said Loki.

“Told who about what?” said Thor.

“Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you.”

“Well, thank you.”

“I’m _serious,_ Stark.”

“Listen,” said Tony. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Who the hell is Thor?”

Loki paused before narrowing his eyes.

“Know that I don’t appreciate liars, Stark,” he said.

Tony didn’t know whether to laugh or to be concerned about getting murdered by Loki on the spot. He coughed into his napkin, half because his throat was dying and half because he wanted to buy himself a little more time before Loki obliterated him with his glare.

“Calm down there,” said Tony, holding up his hands. “I can almost see horns sprouting out of your hair. I don’t even know a Thor. Why would I tell anyone about you?”

First was a look of skepticism, then dawning realization and bemusement. It was like watching a PowerPoint slideshow of Loki’s emotions whiz by—Emotional Outburst of a Norse Troll 101, by Tony Stark.

“Then who—who would have—?” Loki put a hand to his head as if caught by a dizzying spell. “But you are the only one who—who else could possibly know him?”

“Okay,” Tony said, scooting his chair slightly further. “Well, once you get over your epiphany, mind telling me who Thor is?”

“You don’t know Thor,” Loki said with as much trust as one would give a beggar in the big city.

“Why would I know him?” he said.

“Doesn’t Stark Industries ever have business with Asgard Incorporated?”

Tony laughed out loud. “Stark Industries? With Asgard Incorporated? Kid, we deal with completely different industries. We have energy—I don’t know what Asgard deals with; it could be magic for all I know.”

“Not entirely different,” Loki said through gritted teeth.

“Look, whoever this Thor person is,” said Tony, turning the page in his book. “And whatever it is he knows about you that you don’t want him to know, I hope you’ll be very happy together and—”

“You’re going to need a suit of armor and a prayer for your life if you want to finish that sentence,” said Loki.

Tony shrugged. A pang in his chest shot through his lungs and he rubbed it unconsciously, clamping his lips together so that no cough would wheedle itself out. It was like trying to swallow down gravel.

He reckoned he was somewhat lucky, if anything. He could be coughing out blood. Pepper would have a heyday if he got blood on the company’s assets.

At the thought of Pepper, his chest panged but in a less palpable and more painful way than any cough could wrack.

“Is that a Tennessee Williams play?” Loki said.

“What?” Tony said, voice croaking after trying to hold his breath. He hid a cough inside his arm. “Oh, yeah, I guess it is. _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_. It was on stage sometime a couple months ago. Had some famous actress named Scarlett and someone else in it?”

“Oh yes,” said Loki. “I’ve heard of them. What is it about?”

“Are you asking me because you’re genuinely interested or because you want to make me forget about this whole Thor guy and what he has to do with you?” said Tony. “I may be a self-proclaimed narcissist, but I can tell when people are trying to change the subject.”

Loki glowered at Tony before his lips twitched into a dangerously grim smile.

“And that’s uncommon to you?” said Loki.

“What, changing the subject?” said Tony. “I’m not ashamed of anything. Or afraid. Try me.”

“How many affairs have you had?” said Loki.

“Zero. I fooled around before Pepper.”

“That time you were drunk on YouTube and urinated in your suit.”

“Cost me a couple hundred dollars in dry cleaning but what can I say? It was a good birthday.”

“You threatened to kill a man in McDonald’s.”

“I wanted fifty cheeseburgers, and I was hungover.”

“Why are you coughing so much?”

Tony froze. Loki’s light eyes bore into him like bullets piercing his skull.

Boom. Headshot. Dead.

“What?” was all that Tony could say.

“Why are you coughing so much?” Loki said, speaking slowly like one would to a deaf person.

“Well, that’s a stupid question,” said Tony, crumpling up the napkin in his hand.

“Oh?” said Loki.

“I just have weak lungs or something,” said Tony. “That’s all.”

Loki’s gaze did not waver. Ton wished he could just punch Loki right between those pretty-boy eyes just to shatter that stare. Instead, he reached over and took Loki’s mug of tea.

Theft apparently did wonders because Loki’s narrowed eyes of victory suddenly flashed with annoyance as Tony gulped down the rest of his Darjeeling. Tony gave a sigh of refreshment after draining the last leaf, thumping his chest as if to get rid of a burp.

“All better. Now, we were saying?”

“Bastard,” said Loki.

“Son of a bitch,” said Tony. “For your information, _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_ is about—what’s the word they use?—mendacity.”

“Oh joy,” said Loki, staring into his parched cup.

“All plays are about keeping secrets in one way or another, honestly,” said Tony, clearing his throat. Apparently gulping down half a cup of hot tea in one go didn’t do him favors. “See, this entire family is trying to keep the secret to the head of the family that he happens to have cancer.”

“He’s the one who doesn’t know he has cancer?” said Loki. “Isn’t it usually the other way around?”

Tony paused before shrugging. “Yeah, I guess, but in this play, he didn’t get the doctor’s results. His children did, so they’re all trying to keep it from him during his birthday.”

“Because they all loved him so very much?” Loki said under his breath.

“Hell no,” said Tony. “Because he’s rich.”

“Figures,” Loki said.

“It was the whole ‘please the rich relative’ thing again,” said Tony. “You know, sucking up, bursting with babies to please him—which frankly I don’t get because I’d probably hate anyone who forced me to deal with more little rascals—so they could get a big chunk of his will.”

“They only want him for his money,” said Loki.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Exactly.”

Loki tipped back his mug as if to scrounge one last drop of tea. “They all must be ecstatic about the cancer, then.”

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it. He gave the smallest of nods.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess you can say that.”

“Hm,” said Loki.

Tony coughed into his fist and wiped his lips as if that could hide the evidence. His chest ached as if some tiny critter was inside him trying to dig through his bones with a rusty shovel.

“I mean, he wasn’t very likable anyway,” Tony said. “The guy, he…he was pretty brash and rude to the characters. Never was very sympathetic. Not even to his wife, and she loved her big fat heart out for him.”

He scratched his head absentmindedly, then realized how very much he took his own hair between his fingers for granted. He withdrew his hand and stared at it, as if expecting loose strands in his palm even though he hadn’t signed up for chemotherapy.

“It is kind of reverse, isn’t it?” said Tony. “It’s usually the loved ones who don’t know about the cancer. And the sick person who has to break it to them.”

Tony suddenly felt as if his lungs—those defective, molding, puffer fish of a pair of lungs—had inflated beyond its capacity in his chest until his heart was frantic against his chest and his stomach unsettled. Like time out of nowhere picked up its pace and the cancer was catching up to him before he even had a chance to sit back and watch himself die, and before he knew it the world would close in and everything wouldn’t even turn black, it would just become nothing and what next, Tony couldn’t know.

“Hey,” Tony said. He couldn’t feel the words leave his own mouth. He got out of his chair, pulling on his jacket that was probably already two days old and smelled of medication underneath Pepper’s favorite cologne. “I’ve got to go. Gotta meet up with someone. CEO responsibilities and all.”

“You’re impressive, Stark,” Loki said.

“I know I am,” said Tony.

“For a moment there, I nearly forgot you changed the subject.”

Tony paused before flashing a wry smile.

“Remind me the next time I see you,” said Tony, “that I owe you a drink.”

-

Natasha felt her phone vibrating in the pocket of her apron while she was trying to whip up a milk rooibos tea. For a moment she thought that somehow that Thor Odinson character got a hold of her cell phone and was calling to demand why she hadn’t brought any news about Loki yet. Loki, who in fact was sitting in the corner table looking as if this very spot was his only sanctuary, armed with emergency rations of Darjeeling tea and pumpkin biscotti. She had spent a good twenty-five minutes debating within herself about whether or not she should warn Loki about the stalker, but Loki already looked disheveled enough as it was and didn’t need another spoonful of paranoia in his barely stable veins.

She fished her phone out of her pocket as she handed the tea off to its lucky owner. Clint’s name flashed on the screen. She wasted no time picking it up.

“Clint,” she said.

“Are you busy?” said Clint. “Besides having a day job and being responsible, I mean.”

“I can talk,” said Natasha, taking her time to clean up the nonexistent spills on the counter. “How’ve you been?”

“I’m flying to Venezuela.”

Natasha’s breathing didn’t even hitch, but her fingers tightened around her phone.

“You what?”

“Venezuela,” said Clint. “Tomorrow. Caracas, specifically.”

“Why Venezuela?” said Natasha. “That place is the most dangerous place in all of South America.”

“Yeah, well, secret service wouldn’t send S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to the Bahamas for a mission, would they?” said Clint.

Natasha’s lips tightened. It was only a week or two since Clint had opened up to Natasha about wanting to see the world. But of all the places in the world, of all the crime-ridden cities or corrupted nations, it had to be Venezuela.

“Why you?” she said.

“Why not?” said Clint.

“You never even had experience abroad,” Natasha said. She couldn’t help herself. “And now you’re going to Caracas?”

“Glad you have a lot of faith in me, Nat,” Clint said.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Natasha said. She gripped the edge of the counter. “Do you know the homicidal rate of that place?”

“Yeah, I do,” said Clint. “Had to do a couple reports on that place beforehand.”

“Clint.”

“You’re not legitimately worried about me, are you?”

“ _Clint._ ”

“Come on, Nat,” said Clint. “You said you believed in me.”

She closed her eyes.

“What are you going down there for?” she said, keeping her voice perfectly even.

“Technically, that’s confidential.”

“Technically, you never cared about that before.”

Clint sighed audibly.

“We think a terrorist group targeting our Council is housed down there,” said Clint. “We’ll take them down, maybe get some answers.”

“Get some answers,” said Natasha.

She’d be damned if her CD player didn’t start playing Loki’s ‘Guantanamo Bay’ in the background. Loki looked up irately at this before sulkily returning to reading his fifth novel in the pile—he never finished any of them.

“God,” said Natasha.

“Nat, what’s wrong?” said Clint.

“What do you mean, what’s wrong?” said Natasha. “You’re getting shipped off to some dangerous country to deal with terrorists.”

“Yeah, now you know how I felt when you had to do that mission in Sao Paulo.”

“You don’t even _like_ being an agent,” said Natasha. “Why are you risking your life for it? Risking everything?”

It was that exact moment that the din in the café had slowed to a bare simmer and Natasha realized just how loudly she spoke.

“Something tells me,” Clint said, his voice cold, “that there’s a little more going on in your head than you’re letting on.”

Natasha bit down on her tongue. She needed an escape, just a moment where she could stop time and just talk to Clint—stop time from bringing him further and further from her and closer and closer to what dangers lay ahead that she and he were blind to.

She hastily scanned the café, head swiveling like the gaze of a lighthouse, before it latched to the only face she could trust with her inventory. Which said a lot, because she hardly trusted him at all with anything more than a plastic fork.

“Loki, watch the counter for me,” she said.

Loki gaped at her. “I beg your—?”

“Just watch it.” Natasha was already moving around the counter and nearly falling down the flight of stairs before Loki could sputter out any other complaint. She ducked into a corner in the back of the store building, pressing her phone so close to her cheek she felt the buttons embed in her skin.

“Clint,” said Natasha. “Are you still there?”

“I should be packing,” Clint said, his voice brittle.

“No, please,” said Natasha. “Listen to me. When you’re in Venezuela—and you’re going to be there whether any of us like it or not, and I admit that I don’t like it one bit—when you’re there, you’ll make sure to protect yourself, okay? I know it’s your duty and all to protect the American council, protect American interests, all that—but if you ever get into trouble, if you ever get into any danger, promise me you’ll protect yourself.”

“Nat—”

“So if that means run, you run. If that means hiding, you better hide. If that means giving up your badge because it’s all too much and I _know_ that can happen—I _know,_ I’ve _been there_ —then do it. Promise me that, Clint.”

Clint gave a thin sigh.

“You know I sworn an oath coming into service before any of this,” he said.

“I don’t _care_ , Clint,” said Natasha. “S.H.I.E.L.D. duties—they can do anything to you. They have. And I swear, if they are why you end up getting shot, or killed, or captured, or anything, I swear—”

“Why did you quit, Natasha?”

The question put Natasha’s thoughts on halt. She lowered her voice, sinking deeper into the alley next to Tea and Tennyson.

“What do you mean, why did I quit?” she said.

“You were never the same when—you know—Guantanamo Bay,” said Clint. “Natasha, if it’s about the man who died—”

“This isn’t about me,” said Natasha, cutting through his words like a sickle. “It doesn’t matter. Guantanamo was years ago.”

“Nat, you know that isn’t true,” said Clint. “Sure, it’s been a couple years, and sure, now you’re the owner of a great teahouse and you’re all right, but you and I both know that whatever happened has been bothering you all this time and it’s _not okay_ to try to ignore it.”

“There’s nothing bothering me,” Natasha said through gritted teeth.

“I care about you, Nat,” said Clint. “And I know this kind of stuff—no one likes talking about it, but if you tell me right now that you are absolutely, completely at peace with what happened at Guantanamo that you never talk about, I know you are lying.”

“It’s none of your business,” Nat said.

There was silence on the other end. Natasha paused, realizing just how barbed those words could be—to her best friend, even. She hated herself more than she could fathom at that very moment.

“Clint, I didn’t mean it that way,” said Natasha.

“Either way, you aren’t going to talk,” said Clint. His voice was strangely quiet. “Look, I better get going. I just wanted to…update you, and all. Since I won’t be able to call or anything once I’m there.”

“Wait—” Natasha couldn’t let Clint leave to Venezuela thinking that she didn’t trust him like he trusted her. But try as she might to force the truth out from her lips like shoving a boulder uphill, she couldn’t bring herself to it, and only choked air sputtered out from her desperation.

“Take—you take care of yourself, Clint,” Natasha said.

“I know.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

Clint hesitated. Natasha closed her eyes, biting on her lip. Waiting for him to hang up on her like she deserved. It wasn’t something friends would do, but shooting them down when they held out a hand to help was not either.

“Did you know,” said Clint, “that there are more than a thousand different types of birds in Venezuela?”

“A thousand?” Natasha said. She tried to hold back her laugh of sweet relief as she put a hand to her forehead.

“All kinds, you name it,” said Clint. “Hawks, parakeets, ibises—I’m bringing my camera, just in case one flies in my face while I’m kicking drug lords’ asses. I’ll show you. I’ll show all of them to you.”

Natasha squeezed her eyes shut. For the first time since she quit, she wished she was still an agent just so she could follow Clint to Venezuela, or the ends of the Earth, just so she could make sure he was safe. Make sure he was happy. It would only be a small token of gratitude compared to all that he has given her.

“And there’s the Angel Falls,” said Clint, and behind those words she could hear his earnest, _It’s okay, Nat, it’s okay, it’s okay, I forgive you, don’t be sad,_ and just knowing that she meant so much to him made her realize just how little she deserved him. “It’s supposed to look just like Paradise Falls from that Pixar movie. It isn’t close to Caracas and we won’t be tourists, but you never know. And there’s the Amazon, and the rainforests, and the archipelagos and I’ll show it to you, I’ll show them all to you.”

Natasha let out a laugh. She couldn’t stop her throat from swelling.

“I can’t wait to see them,” she said.

Can’t wait to see him.

-

Tony figured there would be a time when buying cough syrup from the local drug store was not going to be enough to stop his coughing, but he reasoned that he still had a couple weeks left before chemotherapy was absolutely necessary (which he would ask to differ). Besides, he had a strange fondness for artificial grape flavoring.

The line for the pharmacy was long; probably spring allergies screwing everyone over simultaneously. One man in line had three kids whose noses ran faster than their restless legs did, if that was possible. A woman in what Tony could have sworn was a Rockette dress was uprooting a tree out of her purse by the number of tissues she was pulling from her purse. Another, a teenager in a coat that nearly swallowed him.

Tony tossed the bottle of cough syrup from one hand to the other. Drinking all this while knowing fully well it probably wasn’t going to help was certainly not the best way to go about things. He was pretty sure that overdose by cough syrup was perfectly viable, but considering the path that his life was going right now, he doubted there was much of a difference.

Funny. He ought to be a little more afraid about this whole dying thing. He only felt swindled.

“My aunt’s been feeling really unwell lately,” Tony heard the teenager in front of him say to the pharmacist. “Do you know what kind of nausea medicine she can take?”

A trip to the Maldives, thought Tony. Or a nice, long bottle of merlot. A walk in the park hand in hand with someone fantastic. That was the only cure these days, and everything the doctors would say about vitamin B and Penicillin and blood type AB positive were all kidding themselves because if his own body wanted to kill him off then who was he to object?

“These would be the best for you, sir,” the pharmacist said, handing the young man a list of medicines. The teenager read through the list, his eyebrows furrowing deeper at every word and—as far as Tony could tell—each price.

“Wait just a moment—” He dug his hand into his jean pockets, scrabbling for loose change and paper. He had no wallet as far as Tony could tell, and he kept his driver’s license and student I.D. card together with a red rubber band. He counted the bills in his hands, his lips pressed into a thin line before silently mouthing, _Oh no._

For some reason Big Daddy and his abundant inheritance came to Tony’s mind. Big Daddy and every one of his children waiting for the cancer to bite him in the rear until he bled money so they could scramble for it.

“I’m sorry,” the teenager said, his voice soft. He stuffed his fist full of crumbled dollars into his pocket. “I can’t afford it. Sorry for taking your time.”

He pulled back on the hood of his jacket as if to hide his mortification under that heavy hood. Before Tony could understand it, he saw his own hand clap on that boy’s shoulders and heard his own voice saying gibberish he certainly did not plan on saying.

“Son, what are you doing here?” Tony said. “I completely missed you in that big coat of yours!”

The young man jumped at Tony’s touch, whipping around and raising his hand as if to defend himself from a potential kidnapper. When he saw that it was Tony Stark who draped his arm around his shoulder, his jaw fell.

“I uh,” said the teen. “Uh—I mean—”

“You should have told me you were coming to buy medicine for your aunt, I would have run that errand myself,” said Tony.

He flashed a wink at the teen, who looked as if God himself came down and claimed that they played billiards together on Fridays.

“You’re related?” the pharmacist said.

“You can’t tell?” said Tony. “I mean, look at our hair. It’s dark.”

The pharmacist blinked. The teen tried to give a casual smile that looked more like a plea of confusion.

“So, how much was that medicine?” said Tony. “Hand that over to me, sonny.”

“But—”

Tony whipped the prescription paper out of the teen’s hand, scanning over the list of acceptable medicine for nausea. He reached into his wallet and pulled out his credit card.

“I’ll take the best one there is,” said Tony. “Whichever one that is. I’m pretty bad when it comes to medicine.”

“Now wait—” said the teen. Tony swung his hand to shush the kid and ended up accidentally slapping him in the nose.

“Right away, Mr. Stark,” said the pharmacist before going into the backroom to find the proper medication.

Immediately the teen fished out all the money he had in his pocket and pressed it toward Tony.  Tony swatted it away like the boy was offering him a handful of mosquitoes.

“I don’t like being handed things, kid,” said Tony.

“Look, Mr. Stark—” said the teen, but the pharmacist was already returning and Tony overrode him with his loud voice.

“Thank you very much, Jeeves,” said Tony, swiping his credit card before the kid could blurt out any truth. He took the box of medication and slapped it against the boy’s chest before throwing his arm around his shoulders again and steering him out of the pharmacy.

“Now, boy, let’s go and get some ice cream,” Tony said loudly. Other customers in the store stared at them as they passed. The teen seemed to sink deeper and deeper in his already cavernous jacket. “Or take a look at the toy store.”

“I’m seventeen,” said the boy.

“All the more reason,” said Tony. “You never know when in life you’ll have your last chance of ever eating ice cream.”

The moment Tony pushed the both of them through the glass automatic doors of the pharmacy, the teen scrambled out of Tony’s headlock.

“What—what was that all about?” the teen said.

“What was what?” said Tony.

“I mean—that was great of you and all, and thank you,” the boy said, though he looked more distressed than pleased, “but—I mean, you’re Tony Stark. You’re _Tony Stark,_ what just happened?”

“You don’t have much grace under pressure, do you?” said Tony.

“Well, I’m not going to lie that I never rehearsed my dignity if a multi-millionaire swooped in and pretended to be my grandpa,” he said.

“I was aiming more toward indulgent daddy,” said Tony. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Peter,” he said. “Peter Parker. Look, let me pay you back—”

“Don’t even think about it,” said Tony. “And I’m a billionaire, not a multi-millionaire. Billionaire philanthropist, anyway. No need to pay me back.”

“I’m not taking charity,” said Peter. “I can give you back the money, I just have to find another job and I’ll do the work, I’ll do any work I need and I’ll just give you back—”

“Just think of it as an early Christmas gift,” said Tony.

“It’s April,” said Peter.

“Hanukkah. That’s closer.”

Peter stared at Tony. Tony would have been perfectly used to it—many a man and a woman stood awestruck at his presence, but Peter looked at him with gratefulness. Something that Tony only now realized no one ever regarded him with until now.

“Listen,” said Peter. “Thank you. Really. I—I normally can afford things, I really can, it’s just…my uncle just died and I just lost my job as a newspaper photographer and I don’t want to make excuses but—well—life has just been crazy. It really has.”

“It happens, kid,” said Tony. “You aren’t making excuses. Life happens. You know what else happens in life? I jump out like a genie from nowhere and grant a wish. How’s your aunt?”

“Aunt May’s sick,” said Peter. “Really bad case of nausea. She wanted to sit it out but she can’t even stomach anything.”

“It’s a good thing she’s got you then,” said Tony. “You’re really young and you’re pretty responsible.”

“Or you’re really old,” said Peter.

“Cheeky. I like that.” The name Parker rang a bell to Tony, only to realize that it must have been the kid’s dead uncle. He only ever kept track of the news because Pepper hunted the internet to take down any YouTube vide of him drunk or worse, and Tony remembered briefly reading about the death of a certain Ben Parker, who died in a drive-by shooting. He had forgotten about it perhaps minutes after reading it, and that news headline was what changed this kid’s life.

“Where did you used to work?” said Tony.

“The Daily Bugle,” said Peter.

“They pay you anything at all?”

“They paid me my lunch money. That’s a good deal.”

Tony snorted.

“Hey,” he said. “You know, all those paparazzi and newspaper photographers never seem to capture Stark Industry just right for the media. You know? And they always get my bad angle. I’d like to hire you into Stark Industry as our very own photographer.”

Peter opened his mouth, closed it, looked away to rub his eyes behind his glasses as if to wake himself from a dream, before turning back to Tony and repeating his gulping goldfish imitation.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” said Tony. “Perfect. If you can, let’s get you started tomorrow. Stark Industry needs to update the photos on their website so any shot of anything—our plants, our workers, our offices, our attractive CEO’s personal secretary, whatever—will be great. Let’s start easy, seventy dollars an hour, how about?”

“Is this some Stark version of getting Punk’d?” Peter said.

“Here’s the address,” said Tony, handing Peter his business card and completely ignoring Peter’s bemusement. “Not that you should get lost. I mean, it’s the only tower in the whole island of Manhattan that has my name on it, for crying out loud. Call this number right here—that’s my personal cell, so you don’t have to go through any life model decoys, and I’ll let you straight up. Any secretary or security person that tries to stop you, punch them in the face and I’ll excuse you for it later.”

“You can’t be serious,” said Peter. “We only just met. You don’t know why I got laid off. You just paid for my aunt’s nausea medicine. Now you’re telling me to come take pictures of you so you could pay me. What’s next, I get a mansion in Malibu and my very own pet giraffe?”

“I could make it happen,” said Tony. “I’m serious, Parker. Come by my office tomorrow. If you have a camera, great—if not, we can fix that. And we can get you working. You’re an honest and hardworking kid—hell, that’s more than you can say about me and ninety-five percent of the people on Wall Street. You deserve to get something out of life for that.”

“Is this a habit of yours?” said Peter. “Picking up geeky kids off the street and giving them jobs in your business?”

“No, but maybe I ought to,” said Tony. “Seriously, that’s my cell phone number. Call me if you have any questions and when you need to get through the front doors. You better go and get your aunt her medicine. Wouldn’t want to keep her waiting.”

“I—yeah,” said Peter, eyes wide as if he was in a trance. “Okay. Yeah. You’re right. I…I’ll do that now.”

He backed away slowly as if afraid Tony would pounce on him if he turned his back.

“When are you done with school tomorrow, Peter?” said Tony.

“Two thirty,” said Peter.

“I’d like to see you at Stark Tower by at least three,” said Tony. “That should be plenty of time, right?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, a wide smile slowly dawning. “Yeah, I’ll make it on time.”

“Three o’clock sharp, kid!”

Peter ran off, as if the reality of everything that was happening dashed out of his grasp and he had to chase it down to make sure it wasn’t a dream. Tony watched the young kid disappear through the streets, practically hopping from one end of the street to the next to avoid running into pedestrians like a spider would. With someone that eager to work, Tony knew he was going to have a lot of potential. Maybe he’ll rise to the ranks someday.

Maybe, when Stark Industry finds itself suddenly lacking a CEO, the kid could pick it up.

Tony laughed at himself. No, he shouldn’t think that way. Young kids shouldn’t be forced into CEO positions anyway.

“Tony?”

Tony turned around and simultaneously forgot and remembered the cough in his lungs. Pepper was walking toward him, both bemused and mollified to see him.

“Pep!” said Tony. “You got my text, huh?”

“Yeah, I was heading to the address you wanted to meet,” said Pepper. “What is it? You want to show me something?”

“Something like that,” said Tony. “Walk with me.”

Pepper furrowed her eyebrows but walked alongside him. She probably had dealt with much weirder and much worse when it came to Tony and still would consent to stay at his side. Tony felt an overwhelming wave of affection for her.

“By the way,” said Tony. “I hired a kid.”

“You?” said Pepper. “You aren’t even involved in human resources.”

“Doesn’t matter, I do what I want,” said Tony. “There’s this bright kid—really responsible, really good kid, and I got him to be Stark Industries’ personal photographer. He’ll be coming in tomorrow, so don’t arrest him or anything.”

“Stark Industries doesn’t even need a personal photographer.”

“Of course we do. We need some sort of Stark version of Playboy magazines. We’ll get millions.” At Pepper’s scandalized look on her face, Tony sobered. “I’m serious. I got him a job with us. Pepper, he just lost his job and his uncle died and his aunt’s sick. The kid’s still in school. He needs some good news in his life. We all do.”

Pepper’s eyes softened. She touched him gently on the elbow, as if afraid to accidentally push him over with her slight touch.

 “I’m not criticizing you,” said Pepper. “I’m just surprised.”

“That I would be a philanthropist?” Tony said.

“No,” said Pepper. “I’m surprised that I’m surprised. I don’t know why, but I felt like you’d so something like this.”

Tony wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Pepper’s hand did not leave his arm; he wondered if she could naturally weld onto him at this touch, like grafted branches of two trees, and that they could grow up and old together. Except it wasn’t so easy to do that when one tree was rotting away.

“What are you not telling me, Tony?” said Pepper.

That he needed chemotherapy and he had half the mind to refuse it just to have a clean end. That it hurt to breathe and he couldn’t sleep at night because his coughing kept him up. That he couldn’t recognize himself in the mirror and sometimes, when he was alone, he found himself so ashamed and so afraid of dying that he would stand stock still where he was as if he could freeze time if he froze himself. That he always thought she would be the one to steal his breath away but now something else was taking even that away from him.

“I read a play today,” said Tony. “At the bookstore I like. _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof—_ ever read it?”

Pepper frowned, but she continued listening. Tony couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He made sure not to walk too fast, even though there were too many places to miss and too little time to spend, in case she might lose his grip on him.

“I’ll tell you about it,” said Tony. “Stage one—curtains rise, and there’s this beautiful and strong-willed woman and her depressed and alcoholic husband at her father-in-law’s birthday party. She’s distraught because he doesn’t seem to like her at all—he won’t come to bed with her, and she’s not getting any children. She wants to win her father-in-law’s favor because she wants her husband to inherit his fortune because she’s been poor all her life.”

_Stage 1—Cancer is limited to the lung and hasn't spread to the lymph nodes. The tumor is generally smaller than 2 inches across. Symptoms include chest pains and coughing._

“She’s lonely. Her husband doesn’t care for her at all. He’s so distant. Then you find out that his dad—whom everyone was afraid had cancer—only has a spastic colon. His mother’s ecstatic—she’s this big ugly woman that’s got a nice heart but that’s all that’s going for her. But when she leaves, the main girl—Maggie—she tells her husband Brick that his mother never got the real papers. That his dad is actually sick, and they weren’t going to tell him on his big day. Which brings us to Stage…two.”

Pepper said nothing. She watched the sidewalk as she listened, her hand still upon Tony’s elbow as if she was leading a blind man. Tony wasn’t paying attention to where they were walking, only that he was walking and talking and that Pepper was beside him. They were blind, leading the blind, going blind, soon will be fully blind.

At least, he will.

“Stage two—” said Tony.

 _Stage 2—The tumor may be as large as two inches and has invaded other organs,_ _or it may be a smaller tumor that involves nearby structures, such as the chest wall, the diaphragm or the lining around the lungs (pleura)._

“Big Daddy comes in and he’s demanding the party be moved up where Maggie and Brick are, and there’s a messy hubbub right there. He’s pretty rude and brash to everyone except his youngest son—that’s Brick. But he and Brick get in an argument about Brick’s inner angst about a dead best friend of his that might have been gay for him. And he tells Brick…tells Brick the one time he was ever scared was when he thought he had cancer.”

The ache in his chest was returning like scorching desert heat directed right inside of him. He breathed in deep, wondering of the cool spring air could do anything to quell the fire in him, but it made his chest itch with infectious coughs.

He focused on Pepper—her fingers placed on his arm, and he began to breathe again.

_Cancer may also have spread to the nearby lymph nodes._

“But then he and Brick get in a bad fight because neither of them understand each other at all. They’re father and son, you know, and they just don’t know each other and can’t know each other. It’s revealed that Brick might have had feelings for his dead friend but is adamant to deny it, even though he doesn’t have any love for Maggie, and he ultimately rejected his friend’s affections. He feels guilty. He thinks he led to his friend’s suicide. And in this fit of—nerves and emotion, I guess—he bursts out yelling at his father that this will be his last birthday. That everyone knows it’s his last birthday. And Big Daddy…he freaks out.

“So—Stage three. The rest of the family minus Big Daddy gathers, and the children admit to Big Mama that Big Daddy has cancer. And she also freaks. They’re all just a mess—this unloved, unloving, angry mess.”

 _Stage 3—_ _The tumor at this stage may have grown very large and invaded other organs near the lungs._ _This stage may indicate a smaller tumor accompanied by cancer cells in lymph nodes farther away from the lungs._

“There’s so much rivalry in this family, between Brick and his older brother who also wants inheritance—but more than that, his parents’ attention—there’s anger between Big Mama and Big Daddy because Big Daddy is just disgusted by her and she is desperate for him. There’s Maggie and the rest of the family because she feels like an outcast, Maggie and her own husband because there’s nothing between them, not love, nothing…nothing.”

Tony found his voice growing hoarser and hoarser with each word, until coughs made his words shudder like earthquakes. Pepper’s grip tightened on him and he wondered if she was trying to hold him down to life.

“And in a fit of desperation, Maggie announces that she’s with child, to gain her family-in-law’s approval. In private, she’s so broken. She’s bribing him with _liquor_ to conceive with her. And he’s just so empty now, he’s worn out. And in the end, when she tells him she loves him—he says, wouldn’t it be funny if it were true? His dad’s dying of cancer and finds out, his mom’s freaking out, his family’s pretty much admitting that they were never a family, his best friend’s dead, and his wife is someone he never loved—and nothing is fixed. Things are ruined. Nothing’s fixed.”

Tony tasted copper in his mouth. He wondered if he would begin to finally cough out blood—the forbidden stage.

“And stage four—”

_Stage 4—_

He paused. That burning in his chest never ceased and he wondered if there really was fire inside him, burning up every organ and vein and leaving nothing but ash until he would one day crumble.

“There is no stage four,” Tony said, his voice quiet. “It ends there.”

“Tony,” Pepper said.

Tony swallowed. It certainly tasted like blood.

“I have lung cancer, Pep,” said Tony. “It’s at a stage two.”

Pepper stopped. Her fingers dug into the elbow of his sleeve. Tony wished he had gone with his original plan—of telling her after making her an omelet.

He turned back to her. Her eyes shone and it all hit him like a long overdue waterfall. He had lung cancer. He might die. He might leave the one person in his life he couldn’t live without.

He might leave her.

“How long did you know this?” she said. Her voice was small.

“I don’t remember,” said Tony. “A month, maybe.”

Her knuckles grew white as she clutched his arm. He could feel the bones in her fingers shake.

“What’s going to happen next?” said Pepper.

It amazed him how very far she was from teary—how she could take anything from a fiscal cliff to news about cancer with her chin high and voice steady. But Tony could see that—if they really were like trees intertwined together, if he was rotting and soon to die, she might be coming with him.

For a wild moment, he hated his love for her. Hated how his love for her was just as cancerous as the mass in his lungs.

“I either take chemo,” said Tony, “or—”

“Either?” said Pepper. “Are you saying you—are you thinking of not taking it?”

“I don’t know,” said Tony. “I don’t want to be hooked up into something to live. I don’t want to try to live by dying only to end up dying after all. I don’t—hell, I don’t want to lose my hair, Pepper.”

Pepper swallowed hard. Her other hand reached for his shoulder, gently, gingery, as if he would flake away at her touch.

“Tony Stark,” she said. “You are strong, you are stubborn, you are frustrating sometimes. You can beat this cancer— _I know you can_. I know I can’t decide things for you. I know that if you choose not to take chemo, I can’t force you. But please—” Her voice broke and she bowed her head to hide her face. When she collected herself, she looked up at him again, her eyes red. “Please. I don’t want you to give up. I don’t want you to choose to die.”

Tony put his hand on her wrists. They were small in his large grasp. He could feel her pulse underneath his thumbs. It helped him remember how to breathe.

“I don’t want to lose my hair,” he said. His voice cracked.

Pepper laughed in a way that was only sad and full of that desperate love, the kind that would plead a husband to love her with a bottle of lukewarm liquor.

“I have enough hair for the both of us,” said Pepper. “I’ll take care of you. I will.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off of hers. He wondered if dying would make him love her more, if that was possible. If it would ever be worth it.

He tangled his fingers in the ends of her long hair. They slipped through the gaps of his fingers like water.

“I guess I’d look pretty sexy with red hair, wouldn’t I?” said Tony.

Pepper wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight. Tony pulled her close, closing her eyes and letting him disappear from the middle of a New York street, from his own body and mind and life and just exist here, in Pepper’s arms, and be nothing but loved.

“You’ll win, Tony,” Pepper whispered. “You will _win._ ”

( _Wouldn’t it be funny if it were true?)_


End file.
